I haven’t written in a while (other
than grad school papers). Life has been
a little hectic, as it is for many right now.
But I know that writing is important for me anytime I am dealing with
something stressful. It’s a processing
tool. So, here goes. The world is a strange place to be these days. I started out 2020 with these grand plans of
what an amazing year it was going to be.
And in many ways it has been, but I would never have imagined that 3
months in we would find ourselves facing the worst pandemic in 100 years and
sequestered to our homes to ride it out.
I have gone through the gamut of feelings over the past few weeks –
anxiety, sadness, gratitude, calm, fear, joy – you name it. The first week in quarantine I was so anxious
that I could barely eat. This week I felt
calm and got a little too fast and loose with my eating (“Kids, let’s make cookies
again!”). I mean, honestly, what else are
we going to do after we finish school for the day? Before this pandemic started, I felt like a
had a very small margin of error in my life with everything I am juggling. Even something like one of the kids having a
sick day would put me behind. Now my
margin of error is in the negative digits.
Managing school for four kids at home, working remotely doing teletherapy
with clients, and staying caught up on grad school is no small feat. But at the same time, I am so grateful for
the wonderful home that we have, the time we have had together, and the fact
that we are currently healthy and have everything we need. It is so sad that Wyatt is missing baseball
season, Ty and Ansley are missing track season, Brinley may not have Kindergarten
graduation, the list goes on and on. But
we are learning something about slowing down and not always being in a hurry to
get somewhere, and for that I am grateful.
However, if this thing goes on for months, you may find me rocking in a
corner somewhere and crying. Haha.
So that was a long intro, but here
is what I really want to write about today.
I had a conversation with co-workers today (thank you God for Zoom!)
where we talked about helping people find the space between panic and not
caring. And that concept has been on my
mind all day. I’ve been trying to decide
what to call that space, and I think the best term I can come up with is “calmly
engaged”. Finding that space is a real
challenge for most of us, and here is why I think that is the case. Panic allows a person to live in the illusion
that they have control over the situation.
For instance, with this pandemic, if you are panicked about catching it, you will become fanatic about making sure you don’t catch it. You will judge all your friends who go buy
groceries, but secretly buy all the toilet paper on amazon. You will believe that no person
is safe. Every person that walks down your street is a threat. You will believe you can’t
touch anything. You will watch the news around
the clock so that you can have every last piece of information so that you can STAY
IN CONTROL. Panic is to some extent a
function of the ego and a way to delude oneself into believing that you have
more power than you actually have.
On the other extreme, you have not
caring. What happens with not caring is you
convince yourself that you have no control, so you give up. What this looks like in this pandemic is a
person refusing to make smart choices to protect self and others. It looks like coughing on your roommate or
having the whole neighborhood over for a bonfire. It looks like pretending nothing is happening
and everyone who cares is ridiculous.
Not caring is a form of defeat.
Instead of allowing yourself to feel any anxiety, you withdraw from
responsibility. One common defense of
this attitude is “God is in control.
There is nothing I can do. He has
already decided what will happen to me.”
And so, you ignore science and data and the people who are begging you
to be smart. Because, well, you just don’t
care.
Being calmly engaged in the middle
of these two extremes is difficult, and here is why. When you are calmly engaged you have to admit
two things: I am personally responsible for the decisions I make, AND I
ultimately don’t control outcomes. This
is a hard place to live because here you have to be diligent and smart and
remain engaged and CARE, but you have no guarantees that any of your efforts
are going to pay off in the end. It is
the ultimate gamble. And yet, this is where
healthy people live. Responsibility meets
trusting in something bigger. Fear can
live here, and the calmly engaged person can talk about that fear and move
through it. This is a scary place to be –
personally responsible with relatively little control. But as it relates to this pandemic, and as it
relates to life in general, this is where we need to be. This is where we can breathe. This is where we are the best neighbors and
friends and family members. This is
where we thrive. This is where societies
take care of their people. The ego quiets
down. The best self steps forward. This looks like loving well. And it looks like holding space for when
things don’t go the way you planned.
This is an open-hearted way of living that both accepts that you really matter
in the grand scheme of things and that you are also small in the grand scheme
of things. Here you rely on God to be ultimately
in control, while you do the absolute best you can with what he has given
you. This is being calmly engaged.
So, as we move through this strange
period that is unlike anything we have ever experienced or would have seen coming, remaining
calmly engaged is key. Anxiety is bound
to come. Hard times are here for a lot
of people. None of this is easy. So, when you feel panic setting in or you
feel yourself losing the ability to care anymore, reach out to someone. Having healthy and loving relationships helps
us remain calmly engaged. We have an
opportunity in this mess to love people better than we ever have before. We have the chance to think about what is important
to us and who is important to us. We can
pull one another back to the center when we feel like we are slipping into the
extremes. We can get through this together. And when we finally get to have cookouts and
bonfires and birthday parties and ballgames and playdates and church and school again, we will all
be so grateful for the everyday things in our lives that we have so dearly
missed.
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