How do you show up? For yourself for others…in this life we have to show up a lot. Show up for school, for family, for work, for parties, appointments, the list goes on and on.
Sometimes we simply don’t want to show up. It feels like too much. Especially when disaster or trauma is in the mix. Like right now. In the midst of a historically horrific year everything feels like too much.
Have you noticed how other people are showing up in your life? Or how they are not? Early on in this calamity someone said to me “people are just not showing up as their best selves right now”. She was right. Often we are not. Because it just feels like too much.
Also because we are scared, confused, & grieving. We are in survival mode. From this place we circle our wagons. We protect our own, ourselves, our families. We instinctively don’t care about much else.
We stop showing up for each other.
You see it out in public all the time. People are short with on another, our smiles are buried beneath the mask. Impatience rules the day. An almost desperate air of selfishness has taken a hold of many. There is a sense of I don’t care about what you need, this is what I need. This is what I’m dealing with…this is my crisis.
We all do it and we don’t need to beat ourselves up over it. But, awareness is key. Becoming aware of when we don’t show up as our best selves; when we come from a selfish and frightened place. The awareness can be enough to shift the energy. To stop and really show up.
Because when we don’t show up for one another from a place of kindness, patience and compassion…when we hurt one another because we are only thinking about our needs we create more pain. More trauma for ourselves and for others.
If Covid teaches us nothing else it has shone a strong light on how we are intrinsically connected. The very air we breathe is shared. The physical space we take up is not just ours. It’s everyones. We are being shown through the virulent spread of this disease just exactly how linked to one another we are.
So when we dismiss that connection and soil it by not showing up we sully the entire energy field. Rather than planting seeds of love and growth we corrode one another with the bitter memory of self centeredness and needy greed. This is held in the body, in the heart and in the mind. It shows up as hatred, anger, anxiety, depression.
We cannot spare the price of not showing up for each other. Now more than ever, we need to show up as our best selves, and if you have a day where that simply feels too hard then don’t show up at all. Remain neutral, silent, at home. Don’t engage. Give your nervous system the love and care it needs to show up. Healed and ready to lead with love on another day.
-Greta