Life Lessons: What 2020 Taught
What 2020 Taught
The last year has been a challenging one in many ways. I know many of us will be glad to wave goodbye to 2020, and leave it far in the past.
I do believe in silver linings, I do believe in a greater plan (even if we can’t understand or even see it at the time), I do believe in bright days ahead, I do believe in lessons learned.
This month, I’m sending you a reflection post. A glimpse into some of what I’ve learned in 2020. An inspiration, hopefully, for you to also take a look back through, do a year in review, and figure out what key takeaways the year might have been trying to gift you.
Here is some of what 2020 taught, at least for me:
How virtual our lives already are.
Anyone else notice how little our lives really changed when everything “went virtual”? I couldn’t believe how little my screen times changed, or how filled my time still seemed to be even during “quarantine.” How can our days still be SO full even when we’re forced to stay at home? It’s because so much of them are lived online, in a virtual (is it even real?) world anyway ~ at least, that’s my take on it.
How many different ways we can choose to live out our existence.
Do you like working from home? Do you like not “working” at all ~ has this year forced you into thinking up alternative ways to pay the bills? Has a new (or re-taken up) hobby that quarantine allowed time for lifted off; can a newfound passion or project also turn into a paycheck? Maybe this year offered the gift of a new perspective on how you’d like to, and will financially be able to (since we do, maybe unfortunately, have to consider that), spend your days.
Did you start a garden this year? Did you learn some new home remedies? How to make your own pickles, your own yogurt? Some other ways to be a lil more self-sufficient that strike your fancy and serve you well ~ and do you enjoy it? Maybe this year offered the gift of a new understanding of how able to provide for more of your own needs you are than you ever imagined you could be.
On a little bit of a different side of that coin, how varied our experiences of the same thing can be.
Some have loved quarantine, some have hated it. I know lots who, two weeks in, had had it and were ready for life to “resume as ‘normal’” ~ on the other hand, some are still not ready to go back to life as we knew it. Where do you fall on the spectrum, and ~ when you sit with where you fall ~ what might this mean for how you should proceed when the world opens back up? I think quarantine has not only showed us more about who we are, our preferences and our needs, but also in doing so given us a better idea of what we personally should focus on in order to thrive, and be happy and healthy, as we move forward.
How arbitrary and un-plannable our own timelines for our lives really are.
We can think we have everything set to happen in a certain way at a certain time, and then realize that nothing we expected would happen actually comes to be in the way we thought it would. For me ~ and this is a lesson I’m constantly learning ~ this means surrender. Surrendering personal plans to the greater plan. Surrendering society’s notions of what timeline our lives should be lived on. Surrendering deeply ingrained beliefs around what productivity and success looks like, what sort of milestones should be achieved and by when. Surrendering each year, month, day, moment in TRUST of where we are and where we’re going and the greater story of our personal and collective existence.
How shakeable our society really is.
Milk and meat and toilet paper ran low on the shelves within days of news of the magnitude of the pandemic, and we panicked. I heard word of some states not allowing the selling of seeds/food-growing materials, and that really hit something deep in me. Food security is just one, albeit a big one, potential concern I think we all faced at some point this past year; can you recall a time in 2020 when you wondered whether we’d be able to buy food at the grocery store, not to mention to hit up restaurants for essentially any type of food our hearts could desire, the way we the privileged are used to? If that alone doesn’t make us take a long, hard look at the way we’re living our lives, then we’re passing up an important lesson of this crisis as far as I’m concerned.
I personally have been interested in homesteading for a long while. To be able to produce food and medicine and source clean water and other basics all separate from the greater system seemed more like it might become a necessity than ever before in this past year. I think our foundation was shaken, and still is not completely out of danger, but could’ve crumbled in many more ways than it did. I also think we should each move forward trying to better educate ourselves and our younger generations on how to take care of themselves in as many ways as possible. We certainly do not need as many things materially as we are led to believe we do, and we certainly can do a better job at supplying at least part of what we need for ourselves/sourcing them locally/etc. Lesson: scale down and rely more on yourself and your immediate local community. Aside from providing more security in the face of such national and global upheaval, this would improve the health of not just our own beings (mental/emotionally and physically), but also that of our earth ~ the two of which are intimately intertwined anyway.
How much more deeply we need to lean into natural, self-empowered and self-sustainable medicine and overall living.
A reiteration of the last point. This is a big one that I think is incredibly important to drive home. If you and your family/close friends/community had to go out into the wilderness and survive (I know, this is the extreme end of the example), how long would you be able to? As a little bit of a further note, I think some basic wilderness survival training is important for all, as is becoming familiar with the local plants and which ones can be used for food and/or medicine. Ultimately, these are our human roots; we’ve just created the illusion that we don’t have any connection to them anymore, which is a health/soul-threatening lie.
How dichotomous so many people’s views on the whole conventional vs alternative medicine thing are.
Like, staunch opposition to anything that’s not western biomedicine.
I have seen such strong opinions against natural medicine that have come without an understanding of it, or any inkling of a wanting or willingness to. If you want to validly reject something, make sure you understand it first.
Ask questions, do your research, try things out for yourself, even. If even after all that you are still opposed, so be it. But don’t stand up against it just for the sake of standing up against it. I discussed this with a friend and colleague this year, and we both noted that some responses to natural medicine almost seem like a possession ~ ungrounded and unfounded, unreasonable and uninformed, as if the person has no logical, reasonable control over what they’re saying in the first place.
To be told that my profession, vocation, education, passion is quackery doesn’t get under my skin as much as one would think it might, because I know the truth of the matter so why/how could I let anyone shake me in that? But it is disappointing in the sense that people are so misinformed, and so much missing out on what their health could be/would be/should be.
How even a complete homebody introvert like me can need community.
Honestly, I can’t say quarantine is too different from how I live on any other given day .. BUT, one thing I do miss is engaging with my like-minded community/tribe in a school/work environment. There’s nothing like being around those who are in this whole thing for a lot of the same reasons, who share a common vision, who are close in age and journeys to you; it helps us see ourselves better, and grow, and take our places in the greater whole. Community, contradictory as it may seem, makes up a significant part of our own personal, “individual” identity.
How I can lose one I deeply love and still have the same amount of love in my heart, despite a space for that loved one that I believe will always be there.
We have all lost in some way in 2020. Jobs, relationships, savings, opportunities, loved ones, etc etc. We each have the right to grieve over and mourn our loss(es), for however long it takes. We each also have the opportunity to transform our losses into greater opportunities, above all, into our abilities to feel more deeply, to exist more presently, to love more fully.
I learned that my heart can still be filled with just as much love ~ filled maximally ~ even after a loss. The one we loved and lost will never truly be lost; we will keep loving them always, even as and long after the emptiness they’ve left feels like maybe it’s been filled up and covered over. We can take the love we had for them, and continue to hold it in equal amount, and yet at the same time lavish it on another. Love is an interesting thing; it’s like, the more you use it up, the more it grows and multiplies. The more you pour it out, the more filled with it you become. Whatever amount of love we have fills our heart, and yet can keep growing without ever reaching capacity. Love is wild.
How important it is to keep loving the ones you have just as fully or even moreso than you did before, even after a loss when it may be tempting to only want the one no longer physically with you.
Continuing on from the last point, when we first experience a loss, it’s normal and natural to only want back who/what we’ve lost. Don’t let this take hold too tightly of you; all/everyone else still needs your love. Don’t withhold it; take this as the opportunity to really love on and appreciate who/what you still have, even more strongly.
How important it is to spend time looking beyond the physical.
Having someone close to you change form, and seeing a body that once was vibrant suddenly be so lifeless, can be traumatizing and disturbing. If it’s not something we see regularly (hopefully most of us don’t), it’s uncomfortable and unknown. I think it’s important to, every so often, remember our mortality, and regularly pay heed to the fact that we are souls in a body ~ a body that will not continue forever. What spiritual/religious beliefs do you hold? How do you let this comfort you/bring you hope when you do lose a dear one? How do you let this shape the way you live your every day?
I was reminded how neat astronomy is.
Though this point might seem a lil random .. it’s not! Anyone else catch the Great Conjunction?!
Much broader than that, though, anyone else feel their whole being expand when looking up at the night sky? I’m not one who needs a quarantine to remind me to slow down enough to enjoy the stars, but some may. I feel that pondering our place in this vast universe and the universe itself is hugely important for our personal and spiritual development. The belief that we are not connected to it all ~ and that it doesn’t connect us to all that was and is and will be, including those we’ve lost if we want to tie it into a previous point ~ is false.
This year gave me practice in looking for the silver linings.
No explanation needed on this one. Didn’t we all get some practice in this regard? I hope so.
How special it can be to spend time making even one day or meal or event extra special.
My approach has always tended to be more practical; why spend 4 hours preparing a meal that will just be gone later that day, for example? Now, I see to greater extent the beauty in spending time on even the details that are perishable. (Are they anyway? If, going off our example, that special meal lasts a few hours in one’s tummy but a lifetime in their memory, isn’t it now immortal? (And doesn’t it feel much more worthwhile?))
Instead of always working toward something that feels big, important, productive, lasting, which tends to be my inclination, it is equally important to take time to play, to create beauty even if it seems like it’ll be fleeting, to soak in the moment for what it is instead of trying to shape it into something that’s intended to make a product or result that will last indefinitely into the future.
This year deepened my patience, trust .. hope.
Haven’t we all been forced to work on this? As I mentioned right from the start of this post, I trust in good, bright days ahead. To say “better” or “brighter” days ahead doesn’t feel right to me. Each day, each minute, just is. Each is filled with what we interpret as good or bad, happy or sad, pleasant or uncomfortable occurrences ~ when it really comes down to it, they are all just part of the human experience. This year, I feel, has been a lesson in accepting what is. And in patience, which in itself becomes much less a factor when we accept (if we accept the now for what it is, we’re not having to patiently wait for it to pass). And in trust. And .. in hope for what beauty the future holds. Because it does.
Thanks for reading. I wish a happy, healthy 2021 to you and to all!
