When are we going to get back to normal? How do I make decisions until then? And more importantly, when is this whole thing going to go blow over?
If you’re asking these questions, this is very normal inside of any disruption where it feels like the ground is being taken out from under you. This is what we ask when we just want to get back to how things were. I’m here to help. There are six specific things for you to remember right now and keep an eye on as you navigate this for your own individual wellbeing, as well as the people that you’re serving and the collective wellbeing.
How to navigate your new normal:
1. Feeling “all over the place” is perfect and appropriate
2. Find true ground
3. Clearly identify your basic needs
4. Identify the facts
5. Plan accordingly
6. Practice letting go
If we are aware of the process that we’re going through, we will have a much easier time navigating these waters of disruption. I’m Leslie Jones. I am on a mission to end the disconnection gap and I equip leaders to bring connection and power and access collective wisdom in groups.
So let’s talk about what’s important right now. First of all, feeling disconnected, disoriented, dysregulated, and kind of “all over the place” is perfect. It’s appropriate. It’s what happens in transformational work of any kind and whether you like it or not during a transformational process, because we are in a major disruption.
We are not going to get back to normal and that’s great news. Normal wasn’t working anyway. If you allow yourself to step back and observe the reality around you and you set all of your emotions and reactions to this lost ground, you will be able to objectively look at the past and the “normal” and be able to see that there was a lot that was not working. As long as you’re waiting to get back to normal, you’re not going to have access to an objective assessment. Trying to get back to normal is going to waste time and create more suffering and be more costly on many levels.
It’s time to surrender to this. This is an access or a place of power. If you can just let go, let go of everything that you’ve known, everything that you’ve built, the systems, the practices, the ideas that you’ve had, even decisions that you’ve made, take it on as a practice to surrender and let go of everything. And lastly, developing and mastering yourself is critical for your leadership and your wellbeing.
The more that you’re able to work with yourself right now in a powerful and conscious way, the more you’ll be able to be of service to your people.
We really have to be with our discomfort of losing ground. The reality of our own death. The fundamental truth is that we’re all connected and our actions really do impact others. The disconnection that we, most of us, have with our bodies in the normal we’ve been living. The lack of workability in the government, the polarity, in our culture, in the United States at least, et cetera, et cetera. We could go on and on, right?
The point here is that everything right now is in question: our beliefs, our identities, our boundaries, social norms, societal structures, your business, the way that you do business, right? Everything is in question. And thank goodness is what I say. Thank goodness the earth, and this is my opinion, the earth has been trying to wake us up in so many ways. Our children have been screaming at us to let us know that they’re not happy. We have higher rates than ever before in our youth of depression and anxiety and suicide rates and mental health issues across the board in youth and adults are higher than ever.
We have finally hit a turning point and this is what’s exciting right now. This is the nature of transformational work. You wake up over and over again, you think that you know your ground and then there is a disruption and you realize there’s another level of waking up to something, layer after layer. And that the world that you were living in was fabricated anyway in so many ways.
How do we create a new life for ourselves and for our communities? And how do we make decisions right now? I want to share a few reliable ways for you to do that. First of all, again, let go and surrender. Remind yourself, none of it was real anyway. Don’t get caught up in your mind’s storyline around what’s happening.
If you need to find a meditation practice to support this, there are a lot of resources, calm.com is a popular one. This is a chance to let your mind do what it does and find a place of awareness and center in the chaos and the disruption right now. Part of that consciousness or awareness is also about feeling your feelings fully. So there is pain. There’s a lot of pain right now. There’s a lot of grief, collective grief and individual grief. And there’s a lot of fear. Give yourself a lot of room to feel those things. We don’t want to try to get rid of them. Nor do we want the emotions to take over and direct us. So this is the first point. Let go surrender and be with all of this.
Secondly, find true ground. What is true ground for you? For me, my body, if I’m in my body, there’s a sense of peace and calm. This is real and grounding. The earth is a place of ground.
Go out. Touch the grass, lay down, feel your feet on the earth. Let the earth be there and hold you. There’s ground in the present moment. Our senses help us be in the present moment. In fact, that’s where they live.
So the past and the future, if we can be right here, right now in this present moment, in the past, in the future, we don’t have to worry about that. That lives up here. Spirit or God, whatever that is for you, is a place of true ground for many, and our family, right? Our relationships and love. There’s true ground there. Just some examples.
Thirdly, clearly identify your basic needs. Not what are your wants, but what are your needs and what’s truly important right now? Food, air, shelter, relationships, health, these are needs. And along these lines you want to just simply name the facts of the day. What’s happening around money from a factual standpoint? What’s happening with your children right now and your employees? What are the facts? Stick with the facts, it makes life a lot simpler.
Lastly, plan accordingly based on these things. So you are surrendering to everything that you’ve known. You’ve located true ground and you know what your needs are and what the facts are. Now you can make decisions and plan accordingly, right? This is about staying in precise action, not hamster wheel action, precise action with decisions that are based on the current situation.
And that’s all that we know right now, right? When you look at your life and when you look at your business based on the facts, and from a place of stillness and power and presence and knowing what’s important… that is the only accessible place right now for decision making.
We are being with all that is as we connect to the moment and make aligned decisions and aligned actions and I can not encourage you enough to stay in action. This supports our movement of emotions and movement of anxiety. This is like watching your house burn down, you know? You’re hanging on, but wait, no, it’s gone. It just went up in flames. You say: “But I really love my kitchen, but well, there it goes, well, those cabinets weren’t that great anyway. I don’t, I, I’m kind of, ooh, I get to get new cabinets!” There’s a lot about the old house then, that you wouldn’t really want to rebuild.
If we can let go of hanging on to our ideas about the past and the “normal”, we’re probably going to be relieved that there is a chance to create anew.
A new house and new structures with new systems that are more in alignment with what’s important and probably more efficient and more potent.
So, again, feeling disconnected and dysregulated/disoriented is perfect and appropriate. We are not going to get back to normal. This is great news. Normal wasn’t working anyway. Trying to get back to normal is the worst thing we can be doing. It’s going to waste time and create more suffering and be very costly on many, many levels. Surrender.
Let go of everything that you’ve known or thought to be true. This is actually a practice. Purposely practicing letting go. Developing yourself, mastering yourself and your own humanity right now is absolutely critical for your own wellbeing and for the wellbeing of the people around you. I heard this quote recently, keep our gaze on the goodness that will come while we tend to all that’s needed in the moment. Thank you, Melissa Michaels.
Join us on the Facebook connection group if you have not already, we will regularly be putting up tips and resources and tools for you. Connection Revolution Facebook. Good luck out there. Thank you so much. Contact us and let us know how we can support you.
