Life After 2020

Life after 2020

It started like every other year. We all celebrated the new year, as always. We made our resolutions, lists of things we wanted to do or stop doing, imagined our dreams coming true, we had big plans, as always. But shortly after the excitement wore off, we were hit with a big dose of reality. We humans are not on the top of the food chain after all.

We are taught to fear things bigger than us. Things with sharp teeth and claws are what we tell our children to beware of. That message is in children's fairy tales, movies and folklore from times past. But we were never really taught what was on the top of the food chain. We thought we were. We showed our strength by killing or capturing the wildest and most fearsome of animals. We conquered nature by building strong houses. But no matter what we do, we can not hide from the top killer. We gave it many names, as just like people do, it comes in many flavors. On the softer side, we call it old age or natural causes. It can also be called cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, respiratory illnesses, flu, COPD, TB, and 2020 gave us Covid-19. What is on the top of the food chain? Microbes. The human eye can not see what we should be most afraid of. Thus, we often forget to protect ourselves from them.

The coronavirus has taken more people than we can ever know for sure. It changed the way we live. It challenged us in ways we never imagined we could survive. But it's not done with us yet. Isolation, depression, touch deprivation, stress and anxiety are just a few of the side effects of the covid pandemic. All those mentioned contribute to weakening the immune system. A weakened immune system increases your chance of contracting Covid. It also reduces your chance of survival from it.

In 1918 aprox 500 million people died from the Spanish Flu over a 2 year period. The world population then was 1.8 billion. Now we are nearly 7 billion people. We currently have lost around 2.22 million so far, less than a year into it. We have better hospitals, better sanitation, we know so much more than we did then. Will that be enough? People are still being reckless with other people's lives. Most don’t do anything to strengthen their immune systems, on the contrary, they are eating worse, moving less, drinking more (and I'm not talking about water.) Information is instant with the internet and phones, yet we may end up doing worse than our ancestors did with the Spanish Flu.

Personal note:

For me, I'm a recovering introvert. You may not have heard such a term before, but that is what I am. I have been an introvert my whole life. Introversion and extroversion are effects from trauma, and that includes generational traumas. But we can still heal from that. That was what I was working on for the past few years pre-covid. I had been working on my healing for many years, but in 2016 I got a big shift and my feelings that I had shut off as a child, came back on. It wasn’t by accident, I had been asking the universe to let me feel happiness and love. After a year, BOOM I could feel. WOW! It was amazing. But you can’t pick what feelings you can feel. You can either feel or not feel. So not only did I get happiness and love, I got them all. To top that off, seeing as I turned them off as a young child (around 6) my feelings were that of a child. After lots of work, I could finally go out and be around people without getting overwhelmed. I would even start conversations with people I didn't know. I was feeling good about my healing. Then Covid hit. I wasn’t worried about staying home so much. I am still used to having lots of quiet time. But I spent my life hiding, and now I want to go out. I want to finally start living, yet here I am, sitting at home more than I did at my worst.

I could easily fall into a deep depression, as many have. I could drink or get lost in TV land. But I decided to see this as a gift. Time to really work on all the different effects that I have from all my past traumas, be them mine, generational, or from incarnations from past lives.

My list was once very long. But thanks to covid, it is getting a lot shorter. I appreciate life more than I ever did before. I am happy more often and embrace every little kindness that comes my way.

How is it that I can do this, during the same time that others are suffering so much?

I learned that we truly do create the life we want. From where I sit right now I can either feel stressed that the bills out number the money coming in, and I miss my family and I don’t know when I will see them again. I worry for my father and I know I am not guaranteed I will ever be able to hug him again. My job is coming to an end as the company is being sold and finding a job during a pandemic is not easy. I broke up with my partner of 4 years, so now I am more alone than I was at the start of all this. Yet I am happy.

I instead choose to be grateful for all I have. I have a roof over my head. I have enough to eat. I have clothes to keep me warm. I have friends and family that are, at least now, healthy. I have time to learn to take care of myself first, rather than putting my needs last. I am spending more time on learning about health and spirituality. I have time to write. I have time to create whatever life I want for myself. I am sitting here with a smile on my face thinking of all I am grateful for. I do have so much.

So what kind of life will we have after this is over? What kind of life will I have? Nothing will be the same. We will not go back to what it was pre-Covid. This event will leave a long lasting mark on us all. Like the great depression, it will affect mankind for many generations. What I hope to see is people being kinder to each other, slowing down, less stressed, apresachating the trees, flowers, birds and even the squirrel that digs in the garden. Taking more time with friends and family and less at work. Finding what is really important to them and reaching towards their dreams, rather than giving up on them.

As soon as this is under control and we can safely gather once more, I am going to go dancing. I may even kill everyone’s ears with some karaoke. Two things I would never do before. I may even go to a concert. I’m going to get a van and live out of it for months while I travel around America. I am going to go down the zipline, instead of watching everyone else and thinking I'm too scared. I will challenge myself to truly live everyday for the rest of my life. As we never know when we may take our last breath. Covid has taken many many lives, what will it take for you to see what a precious gift life truly is?

Take a walk with me for a moment.

We are deep in the Redwoods. The weather is nice, not too warm or too cool. It is just you and I on this walk. Without talking, we walk a path with no known destination. As we walk in silent we see a snake slithering across a felled tree nearby, what do you feel? Are you uneasy? Scared? Happy? Indifferent? Why do you feel that way?

We keep walking and come to a pond full of geese. Our presence starteles them and they began to fly. How does that make you feel? Were you in awe over such a sight? Did it scare you? Did your body react by jumping or ducking? Why do you think you reacted that way?

We continued on our journey and found a dead animal near the trail. What kind of animal did you see? How did it make you feel? What message did you get from it?

We are back from our walk now. We talk about our experience. I asked you how you felt seeing the beautiful snake that crossed our path. I tell you that seeing a snake in your dreams can be a sign for transformation and growth, thus I was happy with the message it brought.

I then ask you about the geese, and how they made you feel. I tell you how excited I was to see such a sight so close up. How amazed I was to see them in such sinquanisity with each other. What about the dead bever we saw, (what did you see) I asked? What did you think of that? I saw that it was a large one and had likely died from microbes (as that is what will take us all in the end) and how it was now food for the insects that were feeding on it as well as the trees. I loved how in that moment we could see just how we are all connected. We are but little parts of one magnificent whole.

The walk I had been on, side by side with you, may have had an entirely different feel for you. Maybe you were afraid of snakes, thus you were now stressed and on high alert for the rest of the walk. So when the geese flu, that may have startled you terribly, making your heart pound in your chest. Now just wanting to get back. Coming across a dead animal would then make you feel sad and maybe fear that it was hunted and that the wild animal that killed it, may find you. So once we got back to our start, you were so uneasy that you never wanted to go into the Redwoods again. The same place where I find my truest peace.

How is it that we were on the same walk but left with a completely different experience? We were not alone. We each took with us all of our past experiences and programming. You may have never held a snake and only saw them in scary movies. You may have recently seen the movie The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock. Maybe someone you love had died recently, so seeing a dead animal reminded you of them. But if we choose to only move forward, we can look at things just as they are.

Let us all choose to not let 2020 not define who we are. But rather embrace life. Each and every moment we have. Let that be the gift of 2020. Appreciate all the gifts we have and share what we can. Sharing files the heart, which strengthens the immune system, making us stronger and healthier.

May all who read this, and those who never will, focus on all the amazing gifts this world offers, and remember to live.