A NEW NORMAL
… and all of the feelings that have come with 2020.
We’re a little past the halfway mark in 2020, and I know i’m not alone when I say that this year has had about 97 emotions wrapped up into 8 months. It’s been exhausting, confusing, scary, uncomfortable, cruel, eye opening, sad, divisive and stressful, to say the least. It’s been a LONG 8 months. And for me personally, the one thing I’ve tried extremely hard to do this year, is to show gratitude and have faith - even when it feels impossible. I’ve been very fortunate in regards to myself and my family remaining healthy and safe, in the midst of so much pain, chaos and heartbreak that others have had to endure. I know that there are people seriously struggling every single day due to a tragedy, losing loved ones, experiencing injustice of some kind, dealing with trauma, etc. So showing gratitude is something that I feel is very significant and powerful right now, but also something that I can easily lose sight of if I’m not being intentional with my thoughts.
Am I saying I don’t have days where I feel defeated or overwhelmed? Absolutely not. I have them more often than I’d like to admit. Do I think we should just mask our emotions because we don’t “have it as hard as someone else”? Definitely not. I think we should all be allowed to FEEL during this season. I kinda think it would be weird if everyone hasn’t been personally affected in some way, given all of the crazy things that have gone on this year. I meant what I said at the beginning of this post - 2020 has unfolded layers and layers of emotions (about 97 of them). Which is why a new normal for me (that I’m still working on everyday), is choosing to be intentional with my thoughts. Because, wow, it could be so easy to get sucked into all of the negativity around us. It could be so easy to focus on the bad things, the anxiety, the stress, the unknown, or how unbelievably scary our world is.
I obviously don’t need to replay everything that’s happened this year, but I can’t help but continue to voice my opinion on what’s happening in our country. In my eyes, it’s felt like a lot of back and forth when it comes to racism. Together. Separate. Unity. Division. Stand up for the black community. Stand up for the white community. My perspective vs. your perspective. There’s just so much that’s happening around us, so much light that’s been shed, so many opinions, so much hate, and just an overwhelming sense of division as of lately. Even when it comes to COVID and the laws made to keep people safe - I’ve seen SO much hate spread, just due to the opinions on wearing a mask. That’s crazy to me. At the beginning of this year, especially when COVID was fresh, it seemed like everyone was banning together. Everyone was standing together. Everyone was expressing empathy and understanding and LOVE. It seemed like everywhere you went or everything that was on TV was portraying some form of “we’re all in this together”. It just felt like hope was all around us. Even though horrible things were happening, I still felt hopeful. Now, it feels tense. It feels divided. It feels cold and one sided. It feels insensitive. It feels hateful. It’s just crazy how quickly circumstances can change and how quickly perspectives can change. It’s crazy (and scary) how quickly opinions, biases and mindsets can be formed just from watching something or reading something, that was most likely created by another person’s opinion/perspective. Isn’t that crazy if you think about it?
Social media and the news are powerful things - and if you let it, it can be powerful in a negative way. It can cause you to sit and scroll for hours and hours, doing nothing but filling you with anxiety or confusion. It can form opinions, hate and negativity in your mind. Which is why I think it’s SO necessary to take a break from it if any of that resonates with you. And I wouldn’t blame you. There are so many different perspectives, opinions, stories, arguments, unproductive conversations, etc. and it can become exhausting. It can begin to creep into your daily life, leaving you with feelings of hopelessness and anxiety. All that to say, of course we have to allow ourselves to FEEL and deal with everything going on around us. Of course we have to be aware of what’s going on. Of course we have to continue educating ourselves. Of course we have to speak up for what we believe in. But we also have to form our OWN opinions, based on our own understanding, our own perspectives, our own emotions and our own experiences. We have to realize when we’ve had enough of social media and the negativity that sometimes follows. We have to understand that not everyone is going to agree, and just because someone doesn’t agree, doesn’t mean it needs to be a facebook battle. We have to respect other people’s opinions for what they are and move on - that may mean you don’t communicate with them anymore. Do what you gotta do. But there are SO many things that we could feel negative about right now, so many people we could “feel some typa way” about. There are probably hundreds of opinions that we probably don’t agree with. Not to mention, all the different political views and opinions that are flooding our timelines and feeds. But we can’t allow all of that to have power over our own lives and affect us in such a negative, hateful way.
I think before this year, there were a lot of “normal” things that weren’t right. Things that maybe weren’t seen, weren’t made out to be a big deal, or weren’t worth the fight. But I can never go back to how things were, and I’m hopeful that others feel the same.