How are you doing? How are you feeling? How are you really feeling? How is your wellbeing?
There is a palpable sense of despair, a sense of “let’s not expend too much of our emotions because we may need them later, things just might get worst. “
It seems as though we are numb, zombies walking around under a dark cloud. In my particular corner of the globe, on the Caribbean island of Barbados the invisible dark cloud brought on by the pandemic and all the pandemic related difficulties, suddenly became a literal and very visible dark cloud of ash from the eruption of the La Soufrière volcano on the nearby island of St. Vincent.
I don’t know how to describe how I am feeling, I don’t know how to describe this period in time, because I do not think there are any words in our language to adequately express this melee of emotions. Instinctively, we want to act ‘normal’ and carry on as though we are fine and all is well.
People are crying, people are dying, everything that was once below the surface is now exposed and raw. How do we cope? How do we carry on? I reach out to friends and family and I get this feeling like no one wants to indulge in too much conversing. Maybe like me, they are all very positive people who prefer to abstain from discussing negativity. That might explain their monosyllabic responses. Because if you don’t want to talk about fear, loneliness, vaccine conspiracy, sickness, death, depression, financial hardship, frustration, then you may as well not speak at all.
I don’t know how any of my friends or family are truly doing, and they do not know how I am doing. Like robots we all just say to each other, each day via WhatsApp something like: “Hey how are you doing?” “
“I’m fine”
“great”
…and continue with or lives, if that’s what this thing is called.
I haven’t cried in a long time and I haven’t truly smiled in a long time either. Just putting one foot in front of the other, inhaling and exhaling because it is automatic.
So when my clients come to me I ask them, how are you truly feeling? What’s troubling you? What do you need?
Maybe you need space to process what’s going on.
Maybe you need to just let go.
Maybe you need to feel more centered.
These are dark times and yet this darkness can be illuminating.
This darkness can illlluuminate what truly matters to you, your compassion, your sence of meaning and purpose, your inner strength, your resiliance.
let this darkness and struggle nurture you. Let it nurture us. Let it help us to move towards the person we want to be. let it help us to connect in a more meaningful way, let it help us to be more honest with ourselves, accepting that we cannot control everything.
At this stage it’s like dipping your toe into a river to test the water. There is hope, and the world will open back up again, and your life will open up again and you will dip your feet into the river, then your legs, and soon the energizing river water will wash over your entire body and you will find yourself more connected to the world, more alive, more focused, more driven, expanding and adapting.
There is a Persian fable which truly reflects the temporary nature of the human condition. It goes like this: A powerful king called all his wise men and said to them “tell me something that would be true all the time and in any situation, in good times and bad.” And they presented him with these words: ‘This too shall pass.’
Let the profound wisdom of this statement wash over you and sink into every cell of your body.
This too shall pass. 
Now remind yourself that you do indeed have the capacity to deal with anything that arises.
And now take a deep breath and greet what’s there, like you would normally greet a visitor to your home, with gentleness and kindness.
Take another deep breath and remember that whatever emotion you are experiencing….it is temporary.
Like all experiences , it arises and will naturally pass away so greet it with as much kindness as you can muster and give it a chance to roll on through.
Take a deep breath and feel the way it washes over you, the way the emotion or the experience moves through your body.
Whatever is the impact of the feeling just try to open yourself up more and more with each breath and let it move through without judgment.
Whatever it is, let it roll right through Just like a wave rises up in the ocean then rushes to shore, then rolls back down, so too will this emotion, this situation, this feeling, raise up and fade away.
How long will it last? Let us resist the urge to push against it or try to make it go away. Let us just keep standing in the wisdom that like everything else – this too shall pass.
Take another deep breath and continue to let it roll right on through.
This too shall pass.