Waiting, Quieting In an Anxious Time
It seems to me as we wait for the Covid 19 Virus to either hit us harder for the second time or we adapt our behaviours permanently to protect ourselves from Covid, we continue to live in a period of heightened anxiety and generalized free floating fear. Do we keep children home from school, should we be all wearing masks when we leave our homes, do we stay home from events that we had previously looked forward to, all become decisions that someone else will judge either correct or incorrect.
Waiting for the unknown is hard. We wait and are fearful of the health implications both for self and others. We are learning to live with the social, cultural, education, familial, economic and spiritual implications of this time of fear. In some instances people are ignoring the Public Health guidelines as we choose to believe that nothing bad will happen to me or my family.
We think about what it means for us as individuals who value our be-ing in community. Even those of us who are introverts, travel in society through our own circles of existence, family, work, church, special interest groups and our humanitarian community are in a state of suspension. We wait…we let stillness enter then let self emerge into to this new quiet.
However, we are also people who are hooked on social media and the noise of the news (both fake and genuine). We are people of action and as people of action we want to plan, fix and generally just do something to forestall the panic that surrounds the unknown.
Some of us deal with the anxiety of living in the not knowing space by hoarding . Rather than seeing buying toilet paper as a joke or some bizarre unexplainable behaviour in response to crisis we can understand it as a reaction to an automatic anxiety around the unknown. Covid 19 is mystifying, not just to us as Canadians but to all of us who inhabit the earth.
So…in our efforts to understand the unknown and the free floating anxiety around it, we act in anxiety fuelled ways. As a result, our shopping patterns change, we try to go when there is less foot traffic in the stores, suddenly the arrows on the floor telling us which way to walk down the aisle mean so much more. I hear of people who are stockpiling food as they wait for the second wave to hit.
When we admit our own inability to truly understand this mystifying illness we can move into a quiet space. What we can do is wash our hands, stay home if we are ill, and wear a mask to protect not only ourselves but the most vulnerable of people. It is hard to follow those we have designated as leaders, and work for the greater good of all and practice social isolation. We had not heard the word social isolation until a few months ago. Now it is part of our everyday vocabulary.
What is the correct response to living with the unknown that right now presents to us as Covid 19. I think we need to wait, slow down in our personal lives, turn off our computers and our compulsive access to media, and wait. Read, listen to music, mediate, pray, nap. Talk on the phone or face time with friends. Get outside in this wonderful climate, ski, walk. Spend time with our families and follow the guides who are at the front lines. Ease another’s burden if you can. Stay away from the hospital unless you are very ill or in a real emergency situation. If we call 811 for assistance we may have to wait…that is ok we must learn to wait our turn.
In other words although it is difficult we can live with the anxiety that is fed by our fears for the future. During our time of self isolation we might learn a few things about ourselves, our priorities and the world that surrounds us.
During this change in our world dynamics we can take time to learn about the values that we hold dear.
Our priorities become clear
More than ever, we find ourselves bombarded with opportunities and possibilities. It’s easy to get drawn into too many activities that drain your energy, time and resources. Waiting is the perfect vaccine for those things that have no place in your life. The ‘meant-to-be’s’ have built-in staying power that distractions don’t. Given time, temporary things will drop out of your life leaving you free to focus on that which is valuable to you and your family.
Develop perseverance; Perseverance is defined as “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. a few months ago (before Covid) at a Spoken Word event the speaker Ahmad Majid quoting Malcolm Gladwell and others said that we get good at what we do by practicing for ten thousand hours. We keep on. Perseverance builds our emotional, physical and spiritual muscles so we are equipped for the demands of adulthood. I hope we do not have to outwait COVID 19 in self isolation for 10,000 hours – which by the way turns out to be 13.689535 months. However at this point it looks like that 10,000 hours is going to be a reality
Understanding yourself : There are high and low points in all our lives, yet these are not what define us. The best place to find out who we really are, is in the sticky bits in between the two. It’s in the slog of daily living that we discover our strengths and vulnerabilities. Embrace your family life or living with your self; don’t fight it. Knowing who you are while you’re up to your elbows in legos and household mess will keep you grounded.
Rest & regroup: Allow yourself downtime. Sleep until you’re finished; take walks in the fresh air. Ride a bicycle and read a book. Recharge your soul with things that feed you. Learn a new recipe, take up a hobby. Change your own patterns. . Waiting creates space in your life, precious time to get in touch with what is going on inside you. It creates space to come to grips with what makes your heart beat faster–what is important to you. Don’t waste it by filling it with rushing or busyness.
Patience: Did you grow up wearing hand-knitted sweaters made with love by your gran? Knitting takes patience, practice and perseverance. There are few things left in our highly efficient society that are geared towards growing patience in us. Waiting is one of them.
Resourcefulness: The process of waiting is often linked to lacking something. Waiting forces us to work with what we have in hand. This sounds terrifying, but once you shift your mind, it becomes healing. Start to see things around, and inside you, with different eyes.
Tolerance and empathy: Getting exactly what you want, when you want it, is not always a good thing. Ask any parent, and they will tell you that immediate gratification over a long period of time can sow seeds of entitlement and discontent. When these mindsets are allowed to take root and grow, the end result is not pretty. On the other hand, waiting is a great humbler. A humble person is aware of the struggles of others and can empathize with their troubles. Waiting for our needs to be met can make us better human be-ings. When I type be-ings it reminds me to live in this moment and pause between breaths and all of my do-ingness.
Capacity: Waiting will lead you through situations you don’t believe you can cope with. You will come out the other side stronger, more capable and with a boost of energy to your self-confidence. We are not built to be rescued at the first sign of discomfort. Waiting is hard. It is uncomfortable, inconvenient, and makes us face things about ourselves that we’d rather avoid. But if we let it, it stretches us beyond what we think our limits are, and there we discover there was a whole lot more to us than we ever knew.
Gratitude: Once you bend your self around the fact that waiting is your friend, and not your enemy, some important things will shift in your understanding. Instead of being frustrated by delays, you can be grateful for them, make the most of each one and soar through your time of waiting. On the other side of it, you will see how much has been grown in your character even though it felt like nothing was happening at the time. Now that is something to be grateful for.
My mind is occupied today with how quickly our world has changed and how some of those changes are to our benefit while others have been harmful. Acknowledge fear but do not let it drive us away from who we are and what we value as individuals, families and societies.