At the beginning of the pandemic I wrote a Blog called Life Whiplash. I think it pretty much summed up the impact that lockdown had on my mental health and livelihood. Fast forward a year and half later to this year I call Whack-A-Mole. Maybe you are feeling this too, maybe this is just my own astrology playing out, maybe this is something else…? Sometimes in our life we meet hardships, conflicts, challenges that seem to just keep coming and allow you hardly a breath to recover before taking on that next thing. It can be exhausting. Burn out is real. I am hearing this from many parents, many people who are just done with all of the adapting to this very different time. Yet, what if this is life now, a pandemic world we must learn to navigate and make peace with? Show your children what it means to be grateful, to be appreciative, to be content with what is and avoid passing your stress and anxiety on to them. They don’t know what to do with it. They don’t need to know this big world stuff yet. Let them be innocent in their childhood wonder.
I know that I, like many, have experienced compounded grief from an avalanche of loss. This is the first school year in over 12 years that I am not in the classroom teaching mindfulness yoga programs, even the after school enrichments were cancelled. The slow realizing of that hit me throughout late August into September that I was going to have find a new job. So for the first time in over 22 years, my business, Nitya Living, is now part time and I have had to seek nanny jobs to fill in as my primary income. Now, I recognize this is a temporary solution and truly that is a saving grace. Recognize that all of this is temporary, and anything can change to make a situation better, or different or worse. As I have made this surreal transition, I remind myself that in 9 months time I will be back in summer with yoga camp, with the kids, teaching yoga to these little people I love so much. The point is to not give up, to not be discouraged, to not let any situation or relationship take down your ship but rather have faith that the fog will lift, the wind will return to your sails, and that port you are trying to reach will come into view or show you another one you never imagined could be.
There is so much potential on the horizon if we remember to look up.
There is so much we can plan for, dream, and imagine for our futures if we hold onto hope and vision.
There is so much to appreciate with deep gratitude in the nuances of change that swim and swarm around us.
There is so much more joy to be found in our days when we let go of resisting and move into accepting.
There is so much to be and see and hear and celebrate when we are just present in this moment…this moment.