It’s late Friday morning. I’m leaning against the tall arm of our couch, laptop open on outstretched legs, and I’m staring at the screen.
A couple weeks back I read on LinkedIn, “You’re not working from home. You’re at home, during a crisis, trying to work.”
Crisis. Is that what this is? It all feels so surreal.
Everyone in my close circle is healthy. Employed. Alive.
But when I go to the grocery store, there are masks over every other mouth. Big one way stickers direct my flow through the once-safe aisles. Circles at the checkout mark where I should stand to remain six feet from the man ahead of me, and I kinda want to hit the man standing a mere two feet behind me.
And then there’s the news, even more distant: numbers on a map. Video footage of bodies buried outside a New York hospital. My favorite entertainers creating TV from their homes. Their homes.
What word could describe this any better than surreal?
None of this comes to mind as I sit on my couch, though, staring at my email inbox. Instead, what sounds between my ears is, Why aren’t you working?
Do something. When you rest, you rust. Be productive.
You aren’t being productive enough!
Hurry up, you’ve got this to-do list, and it ain’t getting any shorter.
How can you expect anyone to respect you as a business owner when you’re sitting here like a lazy pile? And during business hours, no less!
What is wrong with you?
I’m not alone in experiencing this uptick in emotion and negative mental chatter.
This amplification.
If you’re finding yourself more than usual…
More tired. More sad. More irritable. More joyous.
More hungry. More stuffed full.
More wanting to be alone. More wanting to be with others. (Perhaps both in the same breath.)
More anxious, confused, grateful.
More prayerful, doubtful, gullible, skeptical.
More creative. More stagnant.
… remember, this is a crisis. A surreal, we’ve-never-done-this-before crisis.
You aren’t doing it wrong.
You may have more feelings coursing through your body than usual, so remember to feel them. Let them exist in your body without judgement. They might seem like more than you can handle, but I promise you, you can.
The only way out is through.
You can do this. You already are!
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