A Joyous Perspective on Living Life in the Here and Now: During a Pandemic Time

It's Friday, so it must be time for a Friday Night Thought Tale Hour with the Hendersons. Can you believe it's been 2 months since we slipped into what has been one of the more confusing episodes of our world's history? I've been living through this, closely tied to my large family and a large community of work-family. I saw the last semester of my first year of Grad school be spent online using a method I had only first used a year prior. I would never have imagined no kids going to school, restaurants closed, can't even renew your license. But you've lived this too, and I don't want to bore you. This blog isn't about what has happened, but rather, how it might have impacted us in more subtle ways than we ever considered. And I am reminded of how it's true, shit happens. And when it happens, it's always not at the best of times. As Lennon said, 

"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans."

 ~John Lennon

Though it's easy to forget, life is always only happening in the present, as good old Eckhart Tolle reminds us, there's high power in living in the now.

But however well I learned this lesson after my own son's death, this feeling of wanting to fast forward into the future is one I'm noticing a lot lately, both in myself and the culture as a whole.

The Coronavirus pandemic has caused many standard parts of life to screech to a halt, and it sort of feels like life itself is actually halted too. After all, for those lucky enough to not be ill (or have ill loved ones), the changes to daily life seem like a giant "pause" button has been pressed on our world. It's like we've stepped into some dystopian movie.

When will I be able to go back to work?

When will we know that the curve has flattened?

When will I feel safe in a crowd again?

When will this be over?

When we watch those dystopian movies, we know that eventually, we'll be able to get up from the movie theater, throw our popcorn bucket away, and continue with regular life.

But this current version of the world isn't a movie: it is real life, and though it feels anything but ordinary, there's no one holding a giant remote keeping us on pause. Though the roads are empty and the grocery shelves bare, the calendar pages still fly by, and each day that passes is one of a limited number we each have in life.

If losing my son unexpectedly taught me anything, it's that I don't want to wish life away, even when things feel bleak, overwhelming, or downright scary. Life is happening right now, and there are ways we can continue to live it while still holding space for the surrealness of it all.

In the spirit of being present with what is and making friends with even an uncomfortable reality, I offer you some tried and true steps for staying current with life, whatever it may be bringing.

1. Start your day intentionally

In the most normal of circumstances, it's tempting to start the day by grabbing our phones, and amid a pandemic, it can feel almost responsible for checking the news at the crack of dawn. But unless we're actually headed out the door at the very moment our feet hit the ground, there's no reason to make a screen (or the news and opinions on it) the first thing that we see.

Starting our day with things outside our immediate reality can introduce panic, anxiety, and a frightening picture of what the coming day or week might hold.

Before interfacing with the world, I've found that spending at least a half-hour with just myself, can ground me in the present and equip me with the foundation to face what's going on elsewhere.

Within this time, I imagine how I want my day to go: How do I want to feel, respond, or show up to whatever happens? Yes, imagining the day ahead involves leaving the present, but in a way that lays a foundation of protection for each future moment that the day will bring.

2. Check-in with what's real

What's actually real to me right now? Not what's on the news, not what I wish were happening, but what is right in front of me?

I do this by asking myself: How am I feeling physically, emotionally, spiritually?

Though it is responsible for staying informed about community guidelines and general advisories about the current pandemic, checking in with our senses and what is truly real in our world can keep us from zooming forward into the imagined dystopian future.

3. Take off the productivity pressure and slow down

Regular life is often filled with lots of rushing: rushing to work, dropping the kids off, walking the dog, or getting that "thing" accomplished and behind you. Being quarantined has abruptly cut off much of that "hustle" mentality, but we sneaky humans find ways to hold onto our comforting (if unhealthy) habits.

One of those habits is the tendency to stay busy. During this "stay at home order," I've seen a productivity push emerge: a pressure to take this time to learn, create, accomplish, ideally schedule your children, organize community initiatives, and do it all without physical support from your regular village.

If you've got the bandwidth to use this time in a "productive" way that feels good, more power to you! There's nothing wrong with accomplishing when it comes from a place of inspiration or power. But if, like many of us, you're struggling to do even the smaller tasks in life right now, I encourage you to reject this push for productivity. Instead, lean into the slowness that this time has created.

If it's tougher than usual to get ready for the day, practice noticing everything about what getting ready for the day entails: BE PRESENT.

As you notice (and say) what you're actually doing, allow yourself to just be doing that thing. Not shaming yourself over the language you're not learning or wondering why working from home isn't as smooth as you thought it might be.

Leaning into slowness, noticing and staying with every individual action taken, and giving yourself permission to be overwhelmed (and likely slower than usual) is a key to staying present with life exactly as it is right now.

4. Be a time traveler

I remember times when I was raising Seth that he challenged me so much. I would collapse into bed at times and just cry and cry. Never considering that I would even wish later for those times of tears.

Because I've lost him, I realize how precious the time I had with my son was, and the sobering but most valid fact about life (in even the best of times) is that we will eventually lose everything.

Everything will someday be rendered precious because of nature

of our lives is impermanence. Though I doubt any of us will miss the fear or heartbreak of this pandemic, we just might lose the extra time with our family. Even the unique ways people have been kind to each other. Or the incredible global connection we've experienced by going through the same thing at the same time as every other human on the planet.

Kind of like how we might be envious of our former selves that (mere months ago) were going to basketball games. Brushing up against people in sweaty yoga classes, our future selves might someday miss these strange times. Perhaps because we hunkered down and spent them with people who are no longer in our lives, or parenting children who are now grown and out of the house.

Though the experiences are decidedly different, I see some parallels between the sudden death of my son and the current moment in time.

After my son died, I kept trying to gather pieces of myself and fit them back together: I was waiting for the day that things would feel normal again. But my relationships, goals, and every thought going forward felt different…because I was.

Similarly, when the world, our communities, and individual lives return to what one might call normal, these things likely won't feel the same. Our world will now be different because we are.

But rather than grasping at the familiar of yesterday or projecting into an imagined tomorrow, I hope you'll join me in holding space for the mourning, destruction. But mostly, to remember the transformation that's happening both as a union and within each of us.

Yes, things are difficult at present, but as the great Ram Dass said, "let's be here now."

This. Right now, it is our life, and while we still have the choice, let's decide each day how we'd like to live it.

So tonight, Chris and I will be drinking and enjoying some online and personal time with a group of our closest friends. Tomorrow, I'll plant the garden, and Chris will put up the gutter guard. But for right now, I am sending all of you my most magnificent and biggest hug. I hope you feel it. Cheers.