To say the year 2020 was challenging is definitely an understatement.
How it challenged you is surely different from how it challenged me. Some people will remember health challenges, family distancing, or family loss. Many know of job loss or learning to work from home. Many learned how to manage the children during school closing and distance learning.
For me, it will be remembered as beginnings and endings and almost losing my soul. I arrived back in the USA from Mexico and needed to obtain health insurance and get caught up financially. The job found me and sounded delightful. I landed a new place for my dogs and me to reside. It was a new chapter and it was starting out well(or so I thought). The job became a nightmare. I had no control over my schedule and was micromanaged with time and speech. “No, don’t tell them that,” my boss would say, “it’s too many words. Just say this…” I didn’t even realize she was listening to my conversations. I didn’t realize she was so controlling of time that my conversations needed to be shortened. I rarely got a morning break and when I complained, she found a way to write me up. I’m an adult who works hard and I have never before been treated like a kindergartener at work. Before I could even look for another job, COVID hit the planet with social distancing and business closings. I have never had any difficulty finding a job, but this brought a layer of uncertainty to many including me. I was so tired at the end of the day, I could barely function, but I had my own clients to manage outside of my job. By June, I felt I had enough. The job was sucking the life out of me and I believe in designing your life, not living by default, so I was going to quit. Then, I got it. I got COVID. It started out as a mild respiratory infection. No big deal, I thought. I can weather this. But then the GI symptoms hit me with a vengeance. I was so weak. I couldn’t eat for days. After quarantine, I was still sick. I was fatigued. Then there was my now damaged microbiome. I experimented with food trying to figure out how to balance the delicate state of my microbiome. It took months for my stomach and energy levels to approximate my regular state. I still had occasional brain fog. I had no clients. I had no job. I had not written in months. How was I supposed to write about living a life by design when mine was in a dark hole? Although I felt like I couldn’t write, I did read. I read about hope and prosperity. I read authors such as Richard Bartlett, Bruce Lipton, Gregg Braden, Steven Pressfield, Dr. Robert Anthony, Brian Scott, Dr. Joe Dispenza, and Frank Rudolph Young. Some of them I was familiar with already but some were new. It flooded my mind. My already overloaded brain could barely handle it. The brain and thought were exactly what I like to teach but still, I couldn’t quite make it happen for myself. I was foggy and forgetful and I wanted a way out. I had to change my perspective and realize that taking baby steps was the answer. I am working again. I have one client and am building up strength to take on more. And some days, my energy levels are up enough that it feels almost normal again. I’m crawling out of that rabbit hole. I’m writing again.
Dr. Fauci says that if the vaccine rolls out as predicted, we should reach herd immunity by September 2021. Then, we can look forward to Thanksgiving with family and friends again, and everyone will have their own memory of 2020 and whether they fell into a hole or not. My wish is that everyone stays out of the rabbit hole. It’s dark in there.