I wanted to say a few words about the Coronavirus uncertainty, because this is all we seem to hear about these days.
And hear about it we should. Because it's important.
So, first of all, if you have been directly touched by the Coronavirus (COVID-19), if you have lost someone close, if you have contracted the virus or have been quarantined or if you have a loved one who has been infected or quarantined, wherever you are in the world, my heart goes out to you.
Because that kind of thing will shake us up and does make life that much more difficult to handle.
But for all the rest of us who have not been directly touched, I'd like to challenge you a little…
Because when we tend to face situations filled with uncertainty & confusion, it is very easy to dive right into fear. And when we do that, some ways we use to find a sense of security is to blame, to be right, to fight or hoard.
We all do it. I do it. You do it. Everyone does it – at varying levels of course, because we are not all equal when it comes to dealing with strong emotions.
The thing is, it is in those moments that are most complicated, uncertain and difficult that we build most of our resilience and where we help our kids build theirs.
So what if instead of blaming: blaming our governments, our schools, our fellow neighbours who buy too much toilet paper, or whoever else, we could acknowledged that they are in the same uncertainty as us and that they are taking the best decision they can with the resources they have, which may or may not be the best decisions in the end but they are still trying their best.
What if instead of having to be right and argue with everyone about our point of view, we tried to understand where the other point of views are coming from so that we can understand better.
What if we kept better informed rather than listening to a lot of sensational scary stuff that has been packaged in a way that fuels our fears.
What if instead of fighting everyone and everything or stocking piles of pasta that will last us a year, we could all come together as a community, supporting those who cannot afford to buy too much in one go or those with small businesses whose economic cash flow will not survive any kind of break.
What if we could support our fellow humans in any possible way.
Through all this, our kids are watching us.
What do we want to pass onto them so that they can deal with those kind of situations in the future?
Uncertainty doesn't have to breed fear, it can also breed hope, love & re-connection to ourselves and to others.
Events doesn't dictate how we feel. We dictate how we feel about events.
The choice remain ours. Always.