Reset Our World

Finding the Gold in all this Pain

There’s a story told about Carl Jung, the Swiss Psychologist, where he was on Safari in Africa in the 1920s. He had noticed that the local porters took meal and drink breaks but also would stop from time to time with no communication and then silently move on again. He was genuinely curious and after a few days he asked the head porter what this was about. He was told “We are waiting for our souls to catch up”

This is what is happening with us now as we go through lock down.  For many of us this reintegration is empowering and invigorating; for many of us it is a difficult experience as we come in contact with parts of ourselves we have ignored or buried; for many it is painful as that humanity touches us and challenges our stories about ourselves. We see that manifest in the anger and denial, the judgement, the conspiracy theories as we seek to hold on to what was in the past.

Whether we believe this situation is bad luck, Mother Earth reminding us of the impact of rampant commercialisation, a Divine Being suggesting we remember who we are or the collective subconscious creating space for this pause we are all aware that the genie is out of the bottle. A huge shift has occurred, “a terrible beauty is born.” Whether this manifests in how we work, at home or in the office, how we view our material possessions, how we value and manage our relationships and emotions; we have all been changed by this cataclysmic event.

The question for us all is how do we reset our world? What world do we wish to create?

I do not intend to advise people on the world they should create but I would suggest we look at how we set about creating that world. Quite simply how we behave now will create the world we enter into after this pandemic has passed. If we are angry, judgmental, fighting to hold on to what we had, what we did, what we believed then this is the world we will create; a world of disconnection, isolation, anger and resentment.

If we engage in this lockdown with compassion for ourselves and others, if we are curious and mindful of how we behave and feel, if we take time to reconnect with ourselves and others, if we are curious to learn a now skill or consider another point of view we will create a world of compassion and connection.

Does this mean we turn our back on commercialism, on earning a living? No, not at all. Although, it could mean we engage in our jobs in a different way, a way that is mindful of the impact on ourselves, our community, our environment and our future generations.

What do we need to do now to create this world? I wrote a previous blog about how to manage this lockdown and again suggest there are a number of things we can do.

We need to allow time for our souls to catch up. We need to allow space for this. We may not be able to forget the damage to our business but we can create time when we do not dwell on it or on the loss of material things whether holidays, the prospect of buying a new car or a new phone. Create time when the stories we told ourselves about who we are silenced. In this silence we plant the seeds of our new world.

Be gentle with yourself and those around you, allow time for silence, do not dwell on how this might turn out but accept you will be able for how it turns out. Be grateful for the opportunity we all have to reset and reshape our world.

This is a time to savour the joy we get when we stop doing and give ourselves the time to be.

We can Be Happy, Be Grateful, Be Engaged, Be Compassionate