I’m losing my mind in quarantine. This is exhausting. I miss gatherings. I miss music and dancing.
Ugh, yes. I feel you. The oscillating madness of quarantine, social isolation, fear of COVID-19, and the energetic repercussions of the political chaos seen across the globe.
The madness of what we are experiencing cannot be understated. The cumulative effect is essentially traumatic — our fundamental idea of what our society is has fallen apart. (And this then begs the question, as quarantine progresses, how will we return to ‘society’?)
Take time right now to ask yourself: what do I need? (Water? Food? Sleep? Affection? Space?)
Eat something delicious and go for a walk. You don’t need to have a destination in mind. Just explore. Allow your mind to let go and be enchanted by your surroundings. (Personally, I find this easiest in the chaos of nature; a wander through a little forest, off the beaten path, following the animal trails to a brook or a pond or a meadow.)
What is going on in the world lately? I feel like everyone is more sensitive than usual, especially my mom.
So many factors are contributing to this.
On a cosmic scale, our planet is currently in Cancer season — the season of the Mother, home, family, and intuition. As we give our attention to these (fundamental) aspects of our lives, our intuition illuminates where the dysfunction lies. This is triggering. We might resist, afraid to let go of a behavioural pattern that we identify with. We might project, judging someone else for the thing we cannot admit to doing. This is also the season of compassion, empathy, and unconditional love. Don’t be scared! I know it’s unfamiliar. It takes time.
Those of us with ‘crabby’ tendencies — with Cancer Suns and Moons — are already familiar with the sensation of being undertaken by the tides of emotion. But since the Sun is in Cancer, the sensation is indiscriminately distributed. These amplifications happen for every season, every year. This year, however, every single one of us is going through an unprecedented historical period on top of the eclipses (this super cool one and this lunar one), the planet parade, and all the current retrogrades.
Our ultimate goal during quarantine is to have compassion for ourselves at the same level as everyone else — by recognizing that each and every one of us is facing a plethora of unseen challenges in every aspect of our experiences. We are all at different stages of our relationship to Source, Divinity, the Universe. This is a moment to nurture ourselves, first into Being, then into Abundance.
Take care of yourself first. Everything begins with your own personal peace.
During quarantine, I’ve almost been forced to cut out toxic relationships. I know it was the right thing to do, but I feel guilty and sad.
This is perfectly normal. You cut out a piece of your experience (amidst all the other pieces that quarantine has forcibly removed), and you are allowed to grieve. When we let go of toxic people, we are struck by a sudden awareness of the space within ourselves that was dedicated to the toxic relationship. In this instant, we have a choice: we can return to our familiar patterns (and continue deluding ourselves that we are unwitting victims of difficult experiences), or we can look deeper, see the wound beneath the pattern, and offer ourselves compassion.
We all deserve compassion. Every time someone lashes out, it’s just a defensive reaction from an unspoken need. Absolutely everything we are ashamed of in our past is a direct result of a pain we did not process at the time. This is not an excuse for dysfunctional behaviour on our part (we must take full responsibility for our actions) but it would be unfair to discount the fact that none of us have any control over what the universe places in our lives during our formative years. None of us were in control of what examples our caregivers set, what personal values were embedded and enforced, what coping strategies we saw. Each of us is coming from a unique definition of ‘normal.’
We are all doing the best we can with the tools we have. Believe in your process and be patient with yourself. Take time to feel all your feelings and they will pass (one brain neuroanatomist claims in her book that this only takes 90 seconds).
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