How To Tap Into Your Tools For Peace & Joy During This Challenging Time

“How you do anything is how you do everything.” You may have heard this before.

Or, put another way as in this Zen proverb: “Wherever you go, there you are.”

This means that however you have coped with stress throughout your life, is the same way you are coping with the uncertainty and fear caused by this coronavirus.

We inherited our coping mechanisms from our parents and caregivers. Whatever was modeled to us, we adopted in some form, regardless if it was a healthy way to cope or not. Then we learned defense mechanisms as our ego developed to protect us in response to childhood experiences where we felt unsafe, unseen, or unworthy.

If, in the past, you coped with stress and hard-to-handle feelings by eating comfort food, you’ve probably noticed that this is how you’re also responding to the COVID-19 crisis now. Other ways we cope with challenging times that don’t serve us include:

• Busying ourselves with work or our to-do list
• Numbing out with alcohol or drugs
• Consuming excessive sugar (what I found myself leaning into these past weeks, just as I did in my early adulthood)
• Being the jokester
• Shopping or buying things we can’t afford
• Over-sharing on social media
• Tightening our grip and trying to control others
• Attempting to hold it all together, hold back tears, and continue business as usual without pausing to feel or asking for support

In observing others over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that the coronavirus hasn’t created new stress responses or drama, even though it feels different. It’s just magnified all of our regular defense mechanisms, behavioral patterns, and belief systems. It may feel more intense since every single human on this planet is being impacted by COVID-19 in some way, so it’s a collective response. But it’s more of the same.

Similarly, when COVID-19 got real for me, I immediately sought guidance from my wisdom and spiritual teachers who have coached and trained me over the past two decades. What I found is that while their words were presented around our current experience, their messages were the same as they’ve always been. It was reassuring to realize that no matter what kind of pain we human beings come up against, the tools, processes, and mindset for joy, peace, empowerment, and healing are still the same.

Just as every single human on this planet could contract the coronavirus, so, too, can each and every one of us access the truths and tools within us all that can set us free.

Some days I have to use every single tool in my well-earned toolbox just to make it to lunch time. Like many other parents, I now find myself owning the roles of young-child caregiver and homeschool teacher in addition to all my previous responsibilities. The same mindfulness, emotional wellness, productivity, and conscious parenting tools I used a month ago are just as critical and useful now. I’m incredibly grateful for having learned them through my life experiences of pain, guidance, and breakthrough.

Which is why I believe the pain we are currently experiencing due to the shake-up of our old life is humanity’s wake up call. A call to arms for a better way of being that can only be experienced through pain, since pain is the only way humans change and evolve.

Some of us have experienced pain that brought us to our knees in the past, and so we expanded, grew, and evolved (and hopefully are still intentionally doing so). Others of us experienced similar pain, but instead contracted, shrunk, and put up walls to keep more pain out. The rest of us stayed in our predictable discomfort, just getting by – even though, by society’s standards, just getting by looked like “success” from the outside. For those of us in the last two groups, we never had pain deep enough to jolt us out of our comfort zone and into evolutionary change.

What I’ve learned from my teachers and own experience is that pain is the portal to growth. It’s the portal to a more authentic way of being and living. It’s the portal to a more respectful relationship with our Mother Earth. It’s the portal to recognizing our human oneness and sameness, to be driven by love rather than fear and lack. It’s the portal to more kindness, connection, and generosity.

I’m already seeing people change because of this virus. Businesses are focusing on being of service. Managers are putting their employees’ well-being ahead of numbers and profit. Strangers are smiling at one another with a bigger and warmer hello than ever before (from a 6-foot distance, of course). Friends are creating a safe space for one another to ride the roller-coaster of emotions being trudged up as we grieve the death of our old life. Apologies have been said. Forgiveness has been given. Love has been declared.

And also, those things that aren’t really important are being shed like a snake’s skin: There’s no longer time and energy wasted on snarky emails or mom-group drama. Clutter in our closets has disappeared. The unnecessary over-scheduling of our children has been eliminated. Respect is being given, rather than withheld, to cashiers and delivery drivers and blue-collar workers keeping our country afloat. We’ve stopped taking our teachers for granted and are lobbying for their pay to reflect the value they provide to our children.

Change is happening. The pain needed to push it forward is here. So now I ask you, will you choose to embrace it? (Because you always have a choice as to how you respond. And you always have the power in your mind and heart to choose peace, joy, and freedom – even amidst pain.)

As the old Buddhist saying goes, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Self-inflicted suffering was the way of our old world. Growth, evolution, love, and abundance is the way of our new world. Choose wisely, my friend.

With so much love,
Sara

P.S. I outline my most significant tools and life lessons that are getting me through COVID-19 in this free training. Or read about my journey to discovering them here.

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