This statement might be controversial: 

Humans aren’t inherently good or bad. Rather, humans exist somewhere on a spectrum from distortion to clarity. We oftentimes judge humans as “good” when they’re closer to the clarity end of the spectrum. But, suspending judgement really brings on a new perspective.

That perspective may make the healthy coping strategy I suggest easier to do, so hold on to that as you read.

The Calm Before the COVID-19 Storm

I was standing in a conference room in a brand new office space my company had just leased and moved us to. The new office had a game room, complete with real pin ball machines and a coffee bar with an amazing barista. What perks…seriously.

I was gazing out the large wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a parking lot that was still largely a construction zone. It was gray outside in early March 2020. 

The software development team was meeting for our daily standup - a meeting in Agile development where you plan your day and talk about any obstacles so you can get on with a productive day and change course from the previous day as needed or staying on track, either way. 

Agile is all about adapting quickly - it transfers to life quite nicely. We’ll talk about the importance of adapting more, further down.

A friend, the team lead, walked in. We all looked up. This friend always has a smile and is quiet but outgoing at the same time. 

He said, “The first case of COVID-19 is here in [our] county.”

We’d known for several weeks it was in the United States. We’d been watching what was happening in China. We’d been watching what was happening in Italy too, to name a few places that were on our minds. 

We’d been going about our daily lives with the knowledge we were in the calm before the storm, just waiting, not knowing how things would change, even though we knew they would.

When I say “we,” I’m talking about my husband and I, sure, but I’m also talking about the several teams I was on and my friends and family too.

We learned of the first case in our county around 9 am. By 3 pm, schools were closing and activating deep cleaning protocols. Contact tracing of the patient had started. 

We knew where he’d been and that a local school had been exposed.

Because school had closed, I left work that afternoon to pick up my youngest and only biological son. I didn’t know I’d never sit in my chair in that office again.

Because I’m a writer, it was easy for me to work from home the next day, and the next day, and the days and weeks after that. Our company hadn’t traditionally been equipped for working from home, but my job can typically be done from anywhere. Those with kids whose schools had closed were the first to go home. Shortly after that, anyone who could work from home did. And by April, the entire company was moving equipment and settling in at home for the long haul. 

We were now in complete lock down. 

People were dying in droves around the world and in our country. New York was under siege. 

Tears came unannounced and often. 

I decided to take a 6-week leave of absence to homeschool our elementary-aged kiddos because the stress of trying to work at home and actively homeschool them with nothing but a packet of activities, no direction, and a fear that we were wasting our time on frivolous toiling when we could have limited time left together was all I had.

Anxiety Was The New Normal 

“Where are we going to find toilet paper?” 

“We don’t have enough alcohol to keep wiping off our groceries.”

“What’s our blood type?”

“Are the kids learning enough to keep up as I’m trying to guide them through their lessons?”

“Forget learning enough - are we going to make it to the next school year?”

Walks outside around the neighborhood were the exciting and only real activity to look forward to each day. 

During one of our walks, I said to my husband: “We don’t know how any one of us will react if we get COVID-19. I just can’t shake the feeling that if I were to die tomorrow, or if one of our kids or you died because of this, I would regret spending my time behind a computer for a paycheck rather than spending time helping our kids grow and spending time with each other - slowing down to take care of our lives.”

It turns out, even if we’re not in the middle of a global pandemic, we could have limited time left together. But spending it on toiling in unfulfilling activities in exchange for money and not with the people we love seems more okay if there’s not an immediate and known threat.

I learned that it’s not okay. 

(Now, I know that a lot of people have to work jobs that aren’t their top choice. But what I’m saying is, it’s okay to start making small changes to have a more fulfilling life - that will never be a waste of time and even if you don’t get to the destination immediately, the journey matters. Taking a step at all matters.)

We Entered into Cognitive Dissonance Over Essential Workers

So, I quit my job. 

I knew that I wanted to eventually go full time with a small business of my own one day anyways and had been making preparations for a long time. I didn’t think it would happen until much further down the road. But, divine timing has a way stepping in.

After my leave of absence, I went back and put in a two-week notice. I tied up loose ends in the neatest little bows I could muster and said goodbye to some fo the best teams I’d ever had the privilege to work on.

This wasn’t easy. I was making headway as a lead writer and blazing trails in a project that had been three years in the making that I helped grow from a tiny seedling of an idea into a fully funded-project in the first stages of implementation that was going to save the company over a million dollars.

I was making a fantastic living. My family and I are incredibly blessed.

Having started from humble beginnings in Appalachia, relying on food stamps to eat as a 5-year-old, watching my young mom graduate high school, study through college, and make it through to an Associate’s degree and then becoming a Registered Nurse made an impact on how I was going to live my life. 

We’re blue collar people who made it into white collar America. We know that we have a certain amount of privilege right now. 

And now, I was watching the very people I came from work on the front lines of America as “essential workers” as I sat locked up in my house not able to do a thing for them.

People who had no other choice than be put in the path of potential death to earn next month’s rent or tomorrow’s dinner isn’t cool. Yes, it’s wonderful to be grateful for a paycheck, but when a person’s only options are work to not die but you might die or don’t work to not die but you might die, society is broken.

The country was asking the very people it looks down its nose at to save us. 

“What a crock,” I thought, at the same time being very grateful someone was out there, keeping our supplies, medications, and food moving.

We did and do need certain basic items and services to survive and we rely on others to help us get those items. I thought a lot about: 

• COVID-19 is uncovering the fact that all jobs are important.

• COVID-19 is uncovering that food, housing, and healthcare (all things we need to survive) are human rights, not luxuries.

• COVID-19 is reminding us that we’re simultaneously resilient and fragile.

• COVID-19 is reminding us that we need each other, regardless of social status or station, to not only survive, but to live happy and fulfilling lives.

• COVID-19 is teaching us that when you live in a toxic world, toxic consequences happen. 

I thought, “how have people not been able to see this before? It seems like people are beginning to understand this.” 

But, are we forgetting now?

We must remember!

Next time you’re behind a truck driver on the interstate, instead of honking or getting frustrated that you have to drive 60 mph until you can get over, thank him for making sure you have produce or toilet paper. 

The next time your drive thru order comes without cheese or does come with mayo, don’t complain. Think about how much must be going on in that person’s mind that it was a feat they even made it to work in the first place.

The Manufactured Disconnect in Our Divided Country

Now the stage had been set by the rapid change brought on by the pandemic (but replace “pandemic” with any change agent) for collective disappointment, but also massive opportunity for collective growth.

A public health crisis erroneously turned political.

We as humans turn to leaders for answers. I did. I closely watched the president’s daily coronavirus updates, paid attention to what the Tennessee governor was doing, and what our local city and county mayors were doing.

No one could seem to agree on what the best course of action was to stay safe even though we have the science readily available because the leaders were worried about money rather than life - “making a living” rather than living. If this could have remained nonpolitical, we could have come up with solutions that transcended old ways of being, that worked for everyone.

What should have been a time of learning from other nations that were seeing positive results turned into a time of darkness in the United States, where science was covered up. Egos were prioritized. We were slowly receding from the rest of the world into a different, disorienting reality.

It was really disappointing.

The Need to Process Disappointment

By processing our disappointment, we can then grow.

Can we agree that disappointment comes from unmet expectations? And can we also agree that unmet expectations are a result of not adapting as quickly as a change out of your control is happening? Can we agree that fear leads to distorted perspectives? Can we also agree that love leads to clarity?

The premises we just agreed on are true, but we must be careful to not let that language make us think we’re less than by being disappointed or frustrated. It’s not unreasonable to be disappointed, but it’s also not unreasonable for people and the world to change. We must always dig deeper. 

It’s when people change and make decisions from a place of distortion rather than clarity that the world feels dark.

What is reasonable? Expecting every human to show respect for every other human is not unreasonable. So feeling disappointment when someone doesn’t show regard for another’s life is normal. It’s going to happen, because right now we live in a world where people are walking around wounded and don’t even respect themselves. Some do… but many don’t even know they’re walking around like that. 

COVID-19 has shown us who respects themselves and who doesn’t - who values their own lives and who doesn’t, so can’t merely value the lives of others.

To the contrary of showing who are enemies are, it has shown who needs help the most and which systems need to change the most.

By Recognizing Distortion, We Can Move Closer to Clarity

So, feeling helpless, my husband and I put the word out starting in our neighborhood that we could help with meals, picking up supplies, or whatever, for anyone who needed it. Time passed, and no one needed our help. 

We sat tight.

We talked about our priorities. 

I want to fight for human rights. I want to fight for a world in harmony, which is possible if we believe it.

Then, we made a plan for me to go full time with On Being Human LLC, even though quitting a fairly stable job in the middle of lock down complete with salary reductions and COVID-19 layoffs all around us seemed like a crazy move.

On the surface, it could seem downright stupid.

But it was the right move.

Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms to Avoid

(Oh the irony in this section’s title. You’ll see.)

Now here we are, eight months into a new world. 

The six degrees from Kevin Bacon game has turned into the one degree, or worse, the zero degrees from Kevin Bacon game when it comes to the people we know who have gotten COVID-19 or died from it by now.

We’re grieving the loss of how things were and many of us are grieving the loss of loved ones - more than 210,000 in the U.S. alone. 

People tend to cope with traumatic events, like living during a global pandemic, in different ways. When we’re ready, we need to recognize the unhealthy coping mechanisms we developed to get us through the onslaught of stress and change and then ditch them for healthier coping skills.

In my own experience, examples of some unhealthy coping mechanisms are: 

• Numbing - This is a form of avoidance by engaging in a certain behavior that lets you forget about unpleasant emotions. This is one of the reasons I’ve gained the quarantine 15, no doubt!

• Busyness - This is a form of avoidance where you don’t have to focus on the hard work of dealing with unpleasant emotions because you’ve filled up your calendar so much you just don’t have time.

• Inability to be alone - This is a form of avoidance too, but instead you’re spending your time being with other people, letting them dictate what you’re doing, because you’d rather do that than be in your own company, which you perceive as unpleasant.

• Blame - This is a form of avoidance by dodging your own responsibility in your circumstances. It goes hand in hand with a victim mentality and not seeing the whole truth.

Did you notice a pattern?

Anytime you’re avoiding dealing with something, suppressing your emotions, or not allowing your inner truth to be, its typically unhealthy. So, avoid avoidance.

Related: Episode 004: Recognizing Emotional Suppression and Patterns of Abuse to Heal

This virus is still very real. Avoiding the truth won’t make it go away.

We’re now comfortably (yet still with some anxiety) working from home like pros, doing daily temperature checks like we brush our teeth, and we’re taking calculated risks (some bigger than others) when we venture out into the world where the economies have reopened.

We’re emerging into a new, changed world - a forever changed human race.

Right now, I’m finally starting to shower again almost everyday, which means I’m coming out of depression. I’ve gained the quarantine 15, which I hope I can nurture the discipline to lose. 

We’re still not doing indoor activities, and we’re wearing masks even though in our part of the country, a lot of people aren’t.

The Healthy Way To Deal with Disappointment

Coronavirus has pushed me to my spiritual limits and then expanded them.

For example, why do people not want to protect the lives of others? Why do people believe the virus isn’t real? Why do people think they’re invincible? Why do people think that wearing a mask is living in fear rather than just taking a precaution while still living? Why did so many people think reopening schools would not result in health problems? And if they knew it would, why did they go forward anyways?

So. Many. Questions.

WHAT CAN WE DO WHEN OTHERS SHOW BLATANT DISREGARD FOR OUR HEALTH, SAFETY, AND LIVES?

The answer is we need to break the cycle of toxicity.

In a previous blog article, I mentioned that acceptance is one of the hardest intentional habits to maintain for me. Perhaps that’s because acceptance requires you to recognize what you can’t control and then release it. It requires you to release anger. It requires you to surrender fully to faith that everything will be okay, no matter what. 

Sometimes surrendering means doing what’s in your control to protect yourself, like voting, or quarantining correctly, and then letting the cards fall where they may.

Going a step further, forgiving the people who don’t care about your life - that’s so hard. Is it even a thing you should do when someone doesn’t care if you live or die? Anger creeps in when I think about it.

But, forgiveness is freeing. It’s how you respond in love rather than react in anger. 

And when you respond in love rather than in anger, your life improves. And the person who doesn’t care about your life or the life of others (even if they don’t realize that’s what their actions mean) are punished enough by having to live with their own hate and demons.

Surrendering Means You’re Strong. Forgiving means you’re powerful.

In conclusion, surrendering to live in faith and accepting what you can’t control doesn’t mean you can’t take action toward a more fulfilling, healthier, and harmonious life, human race, and world. 

Forgiving others is a form of self care.

Forgiving is taking action.

What it means is freeing yourself to live in love - the foundation needed to change the world.

Once you’re able to go a step further, because progress happens one step at a time, then funnel that energy into achieving results you want in other ways rather than ruminating on the aspects of humanity or your own personal circumstance that you can’t control.

Once you have that foundation, it informs every action you take from there. It makes you want to take action to solve injustices, to repair relationships (whether that means releasing what’s no longer meant for you or stepping into someone’s life more). It comes through in letters to your local government officials. It comes through in how you vote. It comes through in how you relate to the environment. It changes the world.

I can sit here and tell you this all day. But, does it really work? Let me show you through one amazing woman’s example: 

Episode 020: How to Exchange a Life of Chaos for Love and Joy - Parallels between the Impact of Death and Addiction

I want you to listen to the joy in Fran’s voice in this episode. The first half covers taking care of our elderly, but hang out until the second half of the episode to hear about what Fran has been through in life. Although we come from a perspective of coping with addiction, the lessons transcend. Once you hear her experiences and make the connection between how she came to such a joyful present after a difficult past, you’ll recognize the power of forgiveness.

FORGIVENESS

Switching from avoidance and anger to forgiveness is easier said than done. I’ve been learning how to do this for most of my life because of various relationships and events.

Love,