6 Feet Apart. Social Distancing. Work from Home. School from Home.

COVID-19 has forced everyone to stay home, creating space between people, families and communities for the health and safety of all.

There are some defiant, not taking it serious, I do what I want people that are making it worse for everyone. If you are a rule breaker, this is not the time to break the rules because it can mean the cost a life; it could even cost you, your own.

Whatever week of lockdown, self-quarantine or social distance you are in, Covid – 19 may have simply revealed the distance that was already present prior to the virus. We are only noticing this space now because we are physically distant from the life that we knew and the people that we saw on a regular basis.

I facilitate group events that focus on authentic connection. One of the most consistent things that I heard from people that attend my events is: I feel alone, I feel isolated, I don’t think people understand me, I want authentic connection or authentic friends. These were all statements people made when prior to social distancing. Now that we are all experiencing social distancing, these thoughts and feeling are now amplified and multiplied to the larger population.

The agreements we have made as a society to be professional, have surface level conversation aka small talk and only show about four or five emotions of the infinite amount of emotions we are capable of feeling reinforces this distance. Plus, our lives simply get busy and before we know it, we are out of alignment with our values and aren’t aware of it because we are doing the best we can in our lives.

Authenticity, to me is not a skill, it is something we are all born with, but we bury it for our comfort or the comfort of others. Some of us have learned to hide for our survival. Everyone, to some degree, has functioned in this way at some part of their life. We simply don’t talk about it, because we think people won’t understand and thus it perpetuates the hiding.

Covid – 19 created another form of space in terms of pause. Our lives have abruptly stopped, which has brought us to slow down. The “day to day stress” that occupies our mind is being replaced by us navigating what we may have let slip within our personal lives. People are starting to reach out to not only close friends, but distant friends even ex-friends.

The threat, that we may not see a friend or loved one, whenever this nightmare ends, because of how contagious and unforgiving this virus is, is why people are bridging the distance gap via phone, email, face time or letters.

Hallmark and Carlton Cards are giving away free cards or digital cards to help bridge connection.

At the same time strangers are helping strangers now, more than ever. We are all in survival mode to some degree, taking the time to see one another, help one another or see where they can lend a hand has benefits for both the giver and the receiver. I love seeing the free tutorials, drawing pages, concerts, story time etc. This is us, this was always us.

We are in a turning point, a point of no return really. Since this is a global experience, we have all been effected by this virus which is now burned in our memory as the days pass, and it has and will shape how we live and relate to eachother going forward.

May this experience continue to bring out the best in us. May how we show up in this experience, be how we show up, when this experience is behind us and when we can be together again.

Love – Stephanie – XO