Showing Up Authentically
This post is looooong overdue. It has been 10 weeks from today that I had been seeing patients in clinic when COVID-19 had changed our lives.
It’s been such an interesting time and for anyone who knows me, you know I love the word interesting as it is a great umbrella word for a variety of experiences. What’s so bizarre and difficult to wrap my head around is the variance of experiences in the past 2.5 months. How this virus can be life threatening to some and not to others, how the isolation has been horrendous for some and absolutely welcomed and enjoyable for others and the financial implications for so many people and businesses. The only thread of consistency is that we are all connected in this, that this experience has affected us all and that among the variances, we are in it together. We all know that life will never be quite the same hereafter- how businesses will run, how we interact with each other and ultimately how we perceive others.
With so much disruption, it is jarring, especially for those who are wired similarly to myself.
The reason I called this post Showing Up Authentically is that I ask people in my practice to do this. I value authenticity and to ask it of others, which means I need to always ask it of myself….especially when it’s hard to do so.
When stress happens we often do one of three things. We fight, we flee or we freeze. My response when all this began was to fight. My nervous system was spun. Sleep was altered with the dreaded 3 am wakeup where my mind racing, the wired but tired feeling throughout the day was present, causing great levels of anxiety, the change in appetite and cravings were not great, to put it politely and the overall heaviness of this new and very unwelcome reality was felt. But with time, the fight died off and the freeze took over, a feeling very new to me – numbness, fatigue, lack of motivation and deep sadness. Collective grief was spoken about a lot in that time and was a great analysis of what we were all experiencing.
But like all things, there is a season, thank goodness there are seasons in nature and in life…as that fight and freeze response had passed to the present reality of acceptance and even finding joy with the changes that have come from all of this.
The point of this article is to remind you that you are not alone and that whatever season you are presently in – whether that be fear, joy, uncertainty, anger or ambivalence…you are not alone. It’s been an honour to connect with people over the last few weeks and months, hearing their experiences, sharing in their story and supporting them…as it’s been really hard for many. There is so much information out there, that many of us are in mental overdrive. It’s hard to digest it all, knowing what to trust, wondering when things will change and how it will all look. With all the mental chatter, it takes work and effort to connect with ourselves on an emotional level, really listening to what we need and giving space to feel it. For me, as a health care practitioner, I’ve struggled with feeling some of these not so pleasant feelings and grateful to have given room for them to be felt.
Everything has a season and this has been one of the most bizarre seasons of my life. I think many can relate to that. The more we share, the more we open up about what is honestly going on in our lives, the more we remind others that we are in this together. Showing up authentically is easy when things are great but not when things are tricky. I hope however you are feeling, wherever you are at, that you are remembering your goodness, your worth and that you are not alone.
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