Listen to what Your Life is Telling You

My work has changed significantly since mid-March (2020), pivoting from paid leadership training, workshops and coaching, to maintaining coaching programs and donating my time and expertise where it is needed most.  Your life has probably changed quite significantly as well, juggling new and current responsibilities in an environment no one foresaw.

I did not realize the ramifications to my well-being (or that of my family) to having to plot our lives around our busy schedules...

It’s made me happier.  Clearly not the impact of the virus and pandemic on the health and welfare of human beings, but the permission to stay home and sink into this work I love, working in a new way.  I did not realize what the ramifications were to my well-being (or that of my family) to having to plot our lives around our busy schedules, weather, transit, traffic, parking, pick-up, drop off, cooking, working, school, homework, lifework, meetings...

...we’re being more kind to one another, thoughtful.

And as it turns out the jammed-pack timing of our lives was making us very unhappy.  Staying at home with your loved ones in uncertain circumstances is stressful, and I was really concerned we would come out of this at each other’s throats, on edge from being too closed in and not having enough variety in our days. So far, that has not been our experience. We’re pitching in, we’re being more kind to one another, thoughtful.  We share three meals a day, the prep, eating together and the clean-up.  That’s not been consistent for us before as we went flying out the door to get to work or hockey, or something… or flying back in the door only to collapse on the couch and try and catch our breath, vulnerable to any further requests on our limited energy (“Oh good you’re home!  Can you…”), important requests that supported eating together at home, really making time for each other, etc. The good stuff.

Listen to your life, it has much it’s been trying to tell you, but it’s been too noisy to hear – until now.

In the midst of the most unpredictable circumstance I could imagine, my little family unit has found peace.  Coming together in ways I yearned for, but our lifestyle did not support.  Magically we have all figured out what is really important, and it is the acceptance, love and embrace of family.  I could have told you all the things that we needed to work on together in my house, but I would never in a million years have noticed the source of our discontent was almost exclusively external (and directly connected to choices we control and make).  We have been collectively passing our energy on to everything else, not leaving, or giving, enough for/to each other.

Maybe you are getting glimpses of some different but interesting things too; things that point to a need to re-prioritize, to re-arrange and to change once we are inevitably back to “normal” life.  Listen to your life, it has much it’s been trying to tell you, but it’s been too noisy to hear – until now.