For a lot of people Corona Virus has created opportunities to stop and think deeply about life, and to rediscover what is important to them and their true inner selves.
Usually, life can be generally pretty hectic, filled with the everyday concerns of getting food on the table, keeping everyone safe, managing ill health, struggling in bad, and maintaining good, relationships, struggling with poverty and unemployment. Working long hours. Standing at bus stops, waiting for appointments, waiting on answers to our phone calls. So much waiting… Keeping the wolves from the door. The school run. Family visiting, cooking and cleaning. Shopping queues, neighbourhood disputes, paying the bills. Fighting addictions, and so much more.
It seems we have a different type of wolf at the door right now.
Corona Virus. Covid-19.
As a result, all of our lives have changed and we have had to find ways to adapt.
Many jobs have been put on hold, and the government has furloughed many thousands of employees. Many thousands remain working on the front line carrying out vital work to save lives, and keep us all, and the country’s infrastructure, functioning as safely as possible in myriad ways whilst we are in the midst of a pandemic. And still the issues we personally faced every day continue to run through our lives alongside this new normal.
We all have to manage or even struggle to endure these times in our own ways. We are all fearing and grieving in some way. We all have unanswered questions and concerns. We need each other to maintain enough strength and resilience to keep going.
At Divine Days we are, as a community organisation that brings people of all ages, abilities and disabilities together, working every day during the pandemic, to maintain our social connectivity with local citizens in different ways than are usual. Such social connectivity, we are told daily, is making a positive difference to local people, who feel that they matter, that they are safer, and not forgotten, they do not need to feel isolated, and that someone cares about them. We try to be there for each other, even when it is not possible for most of us to meet together in groups or outside the house. Friendships and support networks that were first realised in Divine Days group activities are being enouraged, developed and forged every day into lifelong friendly relationships that will be a perpetual reminder in better times of the power of people themselves to find ways to support their friends and neighbours in these straitened times.
No matter how our lifestyles are usually measured, the levels of our professional status, our income, our education, our family background, our social position and our personal circumstances in the world, We all feel pretty powerless against this invisible “thing” that looms over all of ours, and our loved one’s lives.
Our efforts at trying to make things a little better by offering solutions that aim to support people are not perfect. We cannot dispel all the issues that threaten the health and wellbeing of our citizens. At Divine Days we can simply do our best to gather to offer support in any way we can and to encourage people to support each other too through these difficult times. No prescription, simply facilitating health giving community connections.
We must face the fact that life can be short, even shorter than we expected for some of us and our loved ones that battle this virus. We mourn the terrible loss of so many innocent people, loved ones, workers, and strangers who contracted this virus. We feel very deeply for them all. We fear the effect on our children’s mental health. As they feel our actions and words and absorb the atmosphere in which they live. We ask why, all the time. We often feel powerless. But we are not.
We realise that we still have some choices and power. Through listening to ourselves and discovering ways to cope and live well. We can work to find positive pathways to bring us through what can be very dark tunnels, to reach the light outside. There is still some light outside. There really is. We see it every day.
With the support of those around us, imperfect as it can sometimes be, our minds can strive and be helped to find inner peace, acceptance of these unsure times, and fulfilment in developing our own ways to become stronger and more resilient to the many outside influences that might reduce us to jelly, to disempower us. We can cry all we want, but then we have no choice but to mop away the tears and find a way through….
Through social connections, (a team effort, where everybody values the kindness, empathy, gifts and skills of everybody else,) by talking to each other, on the phone, on the internet and where possible in socially distanced meetings) and sharing our fears (to weaken their insidious hold on us,) we can work to overcome the negative feelings that limit our enjoyment of daily life and our ability to function both physically and mentally. We can discover our own hidden surprising strength and abilities to cope in the healthiest way possible. Much of the time we are apart in our own homes, but in our minds we are Together. Together. Together.
Many people are finding positive ways to overcome the pressures of the lockdown. It seems the curtailing of lost freedoms, means that we are able to truly appreciate that sometimes, in life, it is the small things that really turn out to be the big things, that make the real difference to our survival and progression in life’s pathways. We really have no choice but to cope and get through. Facing fears, fighting them. Helping others to do the same. We even find ways to laugh. Deep belly laughs that might even turn to tears sometimes. Emotions finding an escape route. Healthy cleansing emotions. This is personal quiet bravery. This is the power of connectivity.
We are helping each other to find a degree of inner peace and contentment through genuine warmth and connectivity shared with others during this pandemic.
That thing, that virusy germy filthy looming monster has much reduced power over us whilst we have an army of supporters promoting mutual resilience by sharing the tools and weapons of friendship with which to fight back. (A few laughs, a bit of soap and a mask is helping too.)
Suzanne Blundell June 2020