Togetherness While Sheltering-In-Place
As the covid19 measures are easing up in many countries, and life is (slowly) returning to what it was before, I hope that those who and that what you love is more in the centre of your everyday life — not just in the invisible realm of your thoughts and feelings, but in the way you structure your day and in how you approach your loved ones.
I want to say something about the opposite side because I read a few new statistics last weekend: if you were faced with domestic violence this spring, find your strength to leave. Use the example of people who live with joy, grow their gifts and have harmony in their home as inspirations of what can happen to you once you leave.
A lot of people caught in dark situations are triggered by those who offer loving kindness or dare to live their lives. These reactions are also signs that emotional intelligence is trying to communicate and will rise out of neglect on behalf of a vital and life-saving change.
I too have friends who date compulsively. This spring has put a break on their patterns and made them think a little about how they want to continue. Dating compulsively and violence are often tightly linked, unfortunately. One leads to the other, or more precisely, one becomes a symptom of the other: the imprint of a violent home creates compulsive habits including compulsive daters who only start to question their ways when they are forced to or when they get tired of repetitions or of serious pain.
Our society does not interfere with people “having fun”, and the only places that pick up these people — therapists or churches — are not available or acceptable to many of those people who do need a pause to reflect. Friends (for example, me) can not interfere either, except by giving advice that in most cases goes in to one ear and comes right out of the other.
Because sheltering-in-place happened, some people in my life could get quiet enough in their four walls and have actually absorbed my input. I have no problem diagnosing the situation, even though I present it with kindness. I was surprised by how well they could articulate their emotions once they observed them!
That is why meditation is so effective. And a solution that fits everyone.
A lot of people did not know that they were “meditating” while at home, because they did not follow a guided meditation playing on their gadgets. They went within, in their own way, in the most natural, personal, self-directed way.
I noticed that a whole lot of people altered and widened their perspectives, which is the first step to doing things in a new style, while others have made plans about projects and the future they desire, and again others have become super grateful for the good that they are blessed with.
I have only seen fear, paralysis, conflict addiction on the internet.
That being said: whatever good impulse came to you in the last weeks, make it real.
It is possible to live in a love-centred reality, and it feels good.
What we are not taught, however, is how to give up what sabotages love-centred reality, and that we make room for the good by taking out what is not supporting the good.
All of it.
To use my examples:
compulsive dating sabotages the wish for a loving relationship, although it appears to enable it.
Domestic violence kills the person eventually, and can only progress by minimizing or excusing it. There are so many excuses and so many ways to downplay that someone is hurting. But is that the goal of this bond?
Becoming still and feeling your feelings instead of escaping what you feel through entertainment, self-poisoning substances or compulsive dating is a very accessible way to meditate and to inner clarity.
19 May 2020
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Also published on my blog:
