“Never apologize for showing your feelings. When you do, you are apologizing for the truth.”
José N. Harris
Hey, Lovely.
How are you travelling?
I wanted to check in with you and see how you are doing.
Myself? I’ve been up and down. So have my team. It’s a period of high emotion, uncertainty, chaos. For many of my clients and students it is also a time of pain, loss and diminishment. I’ve been feeling the weight of that, and the responsibility of supporting our community.
Most of my readers are intuitive, empathic, highly sensitive – and for us all, this space we are in right now is difficult to navigate. So, I wanted to share how I have been feeling, and to offer some encouragement if you have been feeling any of the same.
My Facebook feed and my inbox are full of people trying to sell me things, and not just sell me things, but sell me things with tactics that smack of desperation or urgency or pressure and hype. They bombard me with message after message. Marketing tactics. Smooth copy. They tell me all the fear-based stuff about why if I don’t buy their thing or subscribe to or enroll in their thing something less-than-great will happen to me, or worse, I’m a fool for missing this greatest-but-most-limited-opportunity-of-a-lifetime.
That just doesn’t ring true. I find it weirdly offensive. Predatory even. I don’t mind if you sell me things. I welcome the entrepreneurial spirit. There are still people who want to buy and people who want to sell. But there is a better way. Tell me what you have. Tell me why it is good. Tell me why it works. Let me make up my own mind. Don’t pressure me. I’m sure many of you will be feeling the same. That this old way seems doubly wrong right now. So, don’t feel pressured. If it doesn’t resonate step away or unsubscribe. Support the people and businesses who do resonate. Trust your heart.
I am surrounded by upbeat posts and articles about embracing the opportunity that Coronavirus brings us – for us to work from home, to use our down-time to start projects, complete projects, or learn a language or ramp up an online business or reinvent ourselves. There is this weird pressure and expectation that we will be productive – perhaps more productive and creative than we have ever been. Some of these articles even tell me there is something wrong with me if I don’t come out of isolation with a new qualification, ripped abs and a best-selling novel.
But have you been exhausted? Stressed? Depressed? Have you wanted to curl up on a couch with the kids, or sit in the garden with a mug of tea and enjoy the sunshine, or go for a long walk and then take a nap? Has your soul been begging you to slow down? Have you been unable to find your MoJo?
Sensitive souls have a lot to process right now. Our lives may have been impacted by the changes that Coronavirus has brought to our doorstep. We may be struggling to adjust. We may be connecting in to past live memories of other episodes of epidemics, loss and calamity. We may be wiped out by the collective angst that is all around us. We may be overwhelmed by the horror and heartbreak of the experiences of other people in the world, or stopped in our tracks with the knowing of what is yet to come.
And that’s okay. It’s okay to be overwhelmed, stuck, exhausted, grieving, fearful. Sit with your feelings, Honour them. It’s healthy to do that, and unhealthy to ignore them or to push yourself when you are struggling.
Feel your feelings. Work through them. Acknowledge and honour them in the people around you. Talk about them if it helps.
Give yourself time to rest. Trust your instincts to nest or to hide or to nap. Trust yourself. Look after yourself. Reach out if you aren’t coping. And take the pressure off yourself.
This is a long-haul event. We have plenty of time to get to all the productive and creative stuff, if that’s what our hearts desire in the days to come. All that really matters is that we look after ourselves and each other, and do the best we can in these messy and chaotic and uncertain times.
Don’t give yourself a hard time if you haven’t achieved all the the things you’ve had planned so far. Don’t be down on yourself if you can’t actually say what you’ve done with the past few weeks. Don’t be upset if the things you did do took longer, or were different to the image you’d held in your head of what social isolation might look like.
Maybe you’ve been pushing too hard, too long. Maybe you’re exhausted from a lifetime of being sensitive in a world that has not supported your values or honoured the things that matter to you. Maybe it’s been a hard road of hiding parts of yourself, in order to fit in or to be accepted.
Whatever the reasons, and they may be many, please, just honour where you are without judgment. Extend compassion to yourself and those around you. Rest and nurture. Live from kindness, slowness, and love.
Know that when you are rested, and your soul is ready, your intuition will show you your next step.
Biggest gentle hugs, naps and fragrant cups of tea, Nicole xx
