Gifting Yourself Time to Reflect
I’ve recently been feeling an overwhelming urge to take a moment and reflect on everything that has transpired in the last year and a half. Everything that we, as a collective, have been through. Every time we thought we couldn’t go on, but did. Every time we thought this is what’s going to break me, and it didn’t. Every time we were up crying and thought the tears would never stop, and they did. Every time we woke up in the morning and thought, what’s the point of getting out of bed, but got out of bed anyways.
I don’t know about you, but I for one never took a moment to acknowledge the intensity, the unprecedented nature, the precarious state of existence we were all forced to adapt to in what felt like a moments notice. In the blink of an eye, it felt like every thing I’d believed and embodied about what it means to live - to have a life - had been taken away. I felt powerless. I felt trapped. I felt angry. And perhaps worst of all, I felt overwhelming hopelessness. Perhaps now that things are opening back up and I’m slowly remembering what exactly it feels like to be free - a feeling I am truly privileged to have taken for granted most of my life - I’m able to clearly see the magnitude of everything we’ve experienced.
There is so much I want to discuss here, but for the sake of this post, I want to focus on the importance of truly sitting with - truly acknowledging - all that your body, your mind, and your heart have overcome in the last year and a half.
At one point during the pandemic, I remember breaking down while I was talking to my mom on the phone (thank you mom for always answering when I needed to cry, vent, just sit in silence with you on the other end). She responded, “Sweetie, it’s ok, this is an extremely hard time. Give yourself some credit - this is an unprecedented, devastating, and trying time for humanity. It’s ok to feel it all”. I remember, in response, feeling like it wasn’t ok. In fact, who was I to feel stressed, to feel powerless, to feel dread, to feel depressed, when I hadn’t lost a loved one. I wasn’t struggling to pay rent, I wasn’t having to watch my business and livelihood go bankrupt before my very eyes. Who was I to join in the suffering of those who were actually experiencing unfathomable hardship?
However, as we start to transition back into a reality that looks familiar and I allow myself the space to revisit those low moments, those feelings of anguish and hopelessness, I am able to meet them - as well as the version of me that made it through them - with compassion. I am able to meet them with tenderness and grace and all the while look back at that woman and think, you are stronger, more resilient, more capabale, and more adaptable than you ever could have imagined.
When we gift ourselves this time to reflect, this perspective, we are able to develop a whole other level of appreciation, awe, and empathy for the version of self that endured the hardship. A beautiful byproduct of holding that space for yourself is that you are then able to show up for others and do the same for them. It took me a long time, but I’ve finally discarded the sliding scale of suffering by which I compared my experiences to others and from which would grant or not grant myself the gift of feeling what was trying to move through me.
Instead, I’ve realized that by taking time to acknowledge my experience - however that looks - I am not placing my suffering higher than any body else’s. In fact, I am saying to myself and in turn, giving permission to others to say to themselves: I hear you, you matter, and I am here to hold you as you heal from this experience. You see, I never allowed myself the time to acknowledge the magnitude of having your safety, your security, your freedom as you’ve known it ripped away without any semblance of an idea as to when it will be reinstated - or if it will be reinstated. I never took the time to sit with myself and say, what you’re feeling, although you are lucky to not have lost a loved one, to not have lost your job, to have parents that are able and willing to welcome you home with open and loving arms, is ok.
So, as we hurry to “get back to normal” and move back into the world - back to happy hours, movie theaters, comedy shows, and the like - I invite you take a moment and acknowledge the fact that you have made it through something hard. Something trying to your core. Something life changing. I invite you to take a moment and say thank you to your body, your mind, and your soul for keeping you safe when there was every signal firing telling you the exact opposite; I invite you to say thank you for doing everything in your power, even if it didn’t feel like nearly enough at the time, to protect you, to regulate the uncertainty, to process the “doom”, and to metabolize the fear. I invite you to take a moment and say to yourself: thank you, I hear you, and I love you.