The Political Pandemic

I am going to break my own rule here. Rules are set up to guide us and provide consistency, but sometimes, sometimes, under very rare circumstances  they may need to be broken.

I set up EBSW as a wellness and self-care hub, a space to check in with oneself, a space away from the life "out there" and pressures of the every day.
But I cannot pretend anymore that what's "out there" doesn't affect us all, and on a level probably never experienced before.

I had my MD visit recently, and prior to the appointment I was pondering how to respond if my doctor was to ask me  about my stress level (as she sometimes does). Because this is different.
This doesn't feel like a "normal" stress or anxiety that I have experienced before. This does not feel like prolonged anxiety in response to something difficult. This doesn't even feel like burnout.  This - whatever this feeling is, feels unprecedented, scary, and new.

When discussing that with my friend, coach, yoga instructor and a kick-butt entrepreneur herself*, she used a powerful term that she came up with (as far as we can tell), and it was: "political pandemic".
And it resonated deeply.
To be clear - it is not "politics of pandemic", which would be navigating response to COVID-19 thru political agendas and conflicting priorities.

It is us, going thru a pandemic again - political not medical this time - and being thrown into this swirl of anxiety, uncertainty, unpredictability with no clear direction, guidance or outcome.

I have been thinking about it since our conversation last week, and I dare to say, in a sense, this political pandemic is worse than the COVID-19 pandemic was. COVID-19 was surreal and unprecedented; it was traumatic, but I think we all had at least a vague concept of a "deadly disease" and "uncontrolled spread". It felt eerie to be suddenly told that we couldn't visit our loved ones and needed to be restricted to our households.  As deadly and life-threatening as it was, there was a minimal sense of safety: even if we live with people that sometimes get under our skin, there is a sense of safety associated with staying at home (toxic, abusive relations of course excluded). 
I don't want to be accused or romanticizing COVID-19. I lost loved ones during this time, I was an essential employee in an all-hands-on-deck company, responsible for delivering meals to sick individuals.  I've seen a lot of trauma; I was there for my patients as their loved ones were dying in overcrowded hospitals. But as many lives as this disease shattered, there was a glimmer of hope: every day we knew a little bit more about it. Every week we were making better decisions because the virus was more understood. And then we were tracking progress of development of the tests, then at-home-self-testing-kits and finally the vaccine. We went from disinfecting cereal boxes with wipes (remember that?), to wearing masks and distancing, to being able to test, and finally - to being able to vaccinate. We were united behind medical workers - maybe banging pots and pans from the balconies towards exhausted hospital workers finishing 16 hours shift was not the best way to show appreciation, but that was our form of uniting and expressing gratitude that fitted that time. We were in it distancing from each other but - in a sense - together.

It feels different this time. We are divided like never before, and - no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you probably feel that America "as you know it" is threatened. That's the only one common denominator I can think of, and that's a feeling that will create catastrophic sense of uncertainty. Since a lot of conversations settle in "us-vs-them" rhetoric, we are sliding down towards violence and diminishing empathy towards people we don't agree with. With social platforms only reinforcing our opinions and perceptions, and complex issues being reduced to soundbites, tweets or memes we are missing complexity and nuance of what's going on. We lose ability to talk to each other - and, in extreme cases "each other" means family members. Think about it. Finally, every day there is something new to process, and it seems that every day we are getting deeper and deeper into uncharted territory. Some of us are not only unsure what will happen tomorrow, but unsure what will happen in the next hour. So, it's time to talk about it. Let's allow us to admit that it is tough, it is really difficult and we are lost and unsure. Let's admit that it may be bigger than us and let's create a space for acknowledging that instead of trying to 'move on' or 'push thru'. It is new. And we need each other to lean on each other.
Talk to each other.
And if you want to share your thoughts, our community is open for you.

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* Check what Catherine is doing!
https://www.movebreathebe.co/

Photo by Florian Schmetz on Unsplash