Happy Monday!

If you celebrated Easter this weekend, I hope you had a wonderful day with your housemates be it your partner, family or roommates. I also hope that you honored social distancing guidelines to assure the health and safety of you and your loved ones.

LA has had a shelter in place order for a full month and my friends are starting to feel the effects of that order on their spirit.

It can be challenging for everyone to have an active lifestyle filled with whatever you chose to fill your time with from work, school, church, friends, family, movies, theatre, shopping, exploring etc then it abruptly stops.

One important aspect of child development is the importance of structure and routine. For a child, when things abruptly change, it can be challenging for that child to adjust. In some cases, children will act out or withdraw.

In this case, many adults are in a fight or flight state which is the result of this unprecedented experience on top of possibly loosing a job, loss of finances, the death of a loved one or a sick family member etc. There are so many factors that can add up on the initial shock of this experience. That shock that a child feels when abrupt changes happen, is the type of shock that we are experiencing to some degree.

As children, we looked to our elders for guidance both directly and indirectly. Our ability to cope with life’s challenges was first based on what we saw in our elders or how we were rewarded or punished. As we got older, we started to fill in the gaps of early teaching or replace what we learned with personal experience and/ or advice from our peers or new mentors.

In this experience, to some degree, we may all be longing for the voice of reason. We may also be looking for examples on how to cope with this from our peers, mentors or elders.

Even our elders may be a little shocked by this experience and may not have the words. In some cases, people aren’t having critical conversations to address any and all fears about this experience. We need to sit down and have honest conversations with our loved ones no matter how sticky, messy, raw or real that discussion may be.

It is important to talk about what your are feeling because it will change how this experience feels in your body.

One of the most important things that I learned from my voice coach years ago was the importance of honoring what you are feeling, as you feel it. As a yoga teacher, I understand the importance of it from a somatic perspective.

On this Mindful Monday, may you find the strength within to be vulnerable and speak what you are feeling with this experience with all it’s fears, shifts and uncertainty. May you also acknowledge, for yourself, your humanity and honor that you may not have all the answers and by acknowledging that, the answer may eventually come in ways you do not imagine.

As a mindfulness blogger life isn’t about seeing the good in spite of the bad, it’s about seeing the good alongside the bad or challenging, surrendering to it all and learning how to sail with it.

Stay strong.

Love – Stephanie XO