Embracing the Unknown
Camille Lester, MHC
As we enter almost 10 long months of adjusting to a quarantined normal; if you are anything like me there are a number of unknowns that are filtering through your mind. When will life return to ‘normal’? What is ‘normal’ anymore? When can I get back to work? When can I breathe in fresh air without the fear of becoming sick? When can I visit family again? When.. when... when… Right now, it feels like the “when’s” of life are raging stronger and louder than ever. If you find yourself searching for stability as we enter almost a year of surviving the unknown, this blog is for you.
1. Normalize your Experience
We are actively surviving a global pandemic. YOU have survived 10 months of a global pandemic. You have been working, loving, existing, dreaming, hoping, and grocery shopping all with the incumbent threat of the unknown. Our lives have been irrevocably changed. We have found new routes to achieve productivity, communicate with loved ones, and feel like some semblance of who we were 10 months ago. Normalize your experience. There is an undeniable psychic and physiological toll this has taken. Name it. “I am surviving”
2. Make Tangible Space for your Anxieties
Anxiety in the face of the unknown is normal. Our bodies naturally attempt to assess and make meaning of our realities, environments, etc. to keep us safe. At times when there is a perceived threat we are thrust into survival behaviors, some adaptive and some maladaptive but we are wired to survive nonetheless. However, a global pandemic with no true cure in sight (until recently, hooray science), has our minds and nervous systems on overdrive taking in stimuli, accommodating to stimuli, and attempting regulation. Make space for your anxieties. Write them out. Slow down. Breathe. Talk to a trusted friend. Start therapy. The waves of your emotions and anxieties are normal.
3. Embrace the Unknown
This probably sounds like a large feat to do, given all of the above but let’s lean in to what it means to embrace something so difficult. When I think of an embrace, I think of an open posture to something. What would it mean for us to have an open posture to the unknown realities that the next 10 months may entail? Opening ourselves up does not mean loving the state of our life BUT it does mean shifting our bodies energetically to the future. To healthfully embrace the unknown we must always normalize the context in which we are living and make space for our anxieties on a daily basis. Opening ourselves up gives us hopeful confidence in the things unseen; which grounds us to a sense of stability. Opening of self may sound a bit like this:
“I do not know what the future holds, but I am surviving in this moment”
“I relish in the little joys of life, as it is my anchor during this time”
“I am thankful I have survived 10 months of this”
While we approach almost a year that our lives have been fundamentally changed, I hope this blog provides insight, respite, and hope as we imagine the next year to come. We have survived. We have lived. We have shifted; and are now with confidence making the vow to embrace the unknown. In the words of Kendrick Lamar, I have faith that “we gon’ be alright..”
with light,
C