Kate's Nuggets

Permission to Grumble and Permission to Thrive
Episode 21

Podcast Opening over Theme Music:
Hello and welcome. This is Kate's Nuggets, the podcast where I share bite-size nuggets of wisdom about self-leadership. I am your host, Kate Arms. I invite you to listen lightly, let these ideas wash over you. Take what you take and let the rest go. You can always come back and listen again.

Kate Arms:
Here I am in week eight of sheltering in place, knowing that this is the beginning of a long period before the coronavirus is contained through a vaccine and good testing.

Hopefully, there'll be some antiviral drugs developed as well that can help treatment while the vaccine is being developed. But in the meantime, this has been going on long enough that, like so many other people, it has started to feel familiar and with the familiarity of the shelter in place, the grief is starting to become more and more pronounced. The adrenal fatigue is also more pronounced.

The weather here is getting nicer. It's a late spring in Ontario, but nevertheless, spring is here. There are flowers and buds on the trees and the invitation to get out is balanced by the surreal nature of being out and about in these quiet times. And as Ontario prepares to see if some businesses can reopen, nothing will be the same as it was before because all such businesses are being operated under health protocols to keep us as safe as we can be as we start rebuilding the economy that has been shut down.

This time is disconcerting for many.

The exhaustion of having been on adrenaline drive for a long period of time is starting to have more frequent periods of feeling like hit the wall. Irritability and grumbling are more common around everyone that I am talking to. Fatigue, grief, and denial are being replaced by anger, and we have not yet, as a culture, found our way to acceptance and ease, and many of us don't ever want to accept this as a new, if temporary, normal.

Whatever feelings you are feeling, let them be what they are. There is no right way to feel. There is no right way to feel under normal circumstances, and these are by no means normal circumstances. All of us are feeling feelings in ways that are not the familiar ways, even if the emotions are familiar. Some people are feeling guilty because the challenges of living with a pandemic are pulling out the best of them, and they are thriving in some ways.

It can be disconcerting to be thriving while others around are suffering. Others are disappointed with themselves because they have spent years practicing the art of seeing the positive and they have come to believe that there is value in seeing the positive, and finding it very, very hard right now to see silver linings and positives in this stressful world. Some of us are irritable and grumbling and sick of hearing ourselves grumbling. Some are feeling self-righteous, some are angry, and some are just craving hugs or seeing people. Many people are trying to find loopholes in the laws to be able to justify what they want to be able to do. Others are in terror about all possible risks that they cannot mitigate.

These are all perfectly human responses. They may not be comfortable. Most of the feelings that people are feeling right now have discomfort at the core. Even when we are communicating with loved ones and feeling deeply attached and grateful for the love that is in our lives, there may be grief about how long it is going to be until we can see them. Some of you, like me, may have a border that is currently closed between you and your closest family. When will you see them? It can be hard not to know.

You feel how you feel.

Your feelings are a sign about what you care about. Your feelings are a sign about what you want to try and create more of what you want to try and create less of, which way you want to move. Feelings pass through us lasting about 90 seconds. If the circumstances around us don't change, however, those feelings repeat. This feeling may be quite similar to the previous feeling.

If you can watch these feelings arise and name them feeling, feeling, feeling, or call them emotion, emotion, emotion, or even naming them, sadness, loss, disappointment, sadness, grief, anger, joy, grief, cultivating the part of your mind that is witnessing the part of you that is experiencing the feelings will help create a sense of distance from the feelings so that you do not need to get swept up in the story. This will help make uncomfortable feelings harder to get swallowed up by, easier to surf on.

With enough attention on the of you witnesses you having feeling experiences, you experience spaciousness that can have a blissful feeling even while the emotion that you are experiencing in your body is despair or sadness or anger. But if you do not have that distance and that inner witness, there is no shame. And by learning to ride the waves of your feelings, knowing this too shall pass. You will get through this in these times of choppy waters.

We can expect the ride through life to be sometimes rough, sometimes dull, and sometimes exhilarating. There is nothing wrong with any of that. This journey is the human experience, and this is what it means to be alive and conscious during difficult and challenging times.

May you be at ease. May you feel the bliss of equanimity. May you experience the fullness of your emotions without being dragged down by the story. May you find ease and comfort on your path.

End Theme and Credits:
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To dig deeper into the topics I cover on the podcast, follow me at instagram.com/SignalFireKate or at facebook.com/katearmscoach.
To take this work deeper and learn how I can support you personally as your coach, email me at kate@signalfirecoaching.com to schedule a free consultation.
Here's to Thriving! Catch you next time.
Kate's Nuggets is a Signal Fire Coaching production. The music is adapted under license from Heroic Age by Kevin McLeod.