I thought I was doing okay. Covid-19 was barely in my state, and our life for about seven years had basically been the epitome of social distancing. We worked from home, and we went out basically once a week, to get groceries. When our school system announced that it would be closed and we would be doing eLearning for the week before spring break, I sighed, knowing I would need to adjust my schedule to allow for this in my work-from-home routine, but otherwise, everything stayed the same.

https://www.facebook.com/stephanie.stringham/videos/10158186337247498/

On Wednesday of that eLearning week, I did a Facebook Live video about how to stay sane, for those people new to the work-from-home scene. I also recorded April’s energy report. Everything was pretty normal for our house.

The next day, our state’s governor announced that all schools would be closed through May 1. That evening, my husband’s boss decided to close the company on Friday and the following week. We were surprised, given that the company is so small and makes medical lab testing kits, but we shrugged our shoulders. Our daughter would be home for spring break the following week, and this meant my husband would be able to watch the kids while I worked. Okay, no problem. My husband had only started working outside the home again in October, so this would just be a rollback to our routine from the previous summer, when everyone had been home.

We went grocery shopping on Friday morning, changing our routine just a bit: My husband and kids stayed in the car while I went in, and I bought groceries for two weeks instead of one, to allow for better social distancing. The store was packed, and almost all but the most expensive frozen and shelf-stable items were gone, but this was okay because we needed mostly fresh foods, since we try to keep stocked up in case of emergencies.

On the following Monday, the governor announced that all nonessential businesses were to be closed for two weeks and we should go out only when necessary. Okay, we live on a little over three acres in the country, so we can get plenty of fresh air and exercise without having to worry about contacting other humans. My husband will be able to do eLearning with my daughter when spring break is over, freeing me to do my regularly scheduled work.

Amidst all of this, inside the various FB groups I’m part of for entrepreneurs, energy healers, network marketers, and financial independence, I saw people talking about this being a tremendous opportunity for home-based businesses, for starting businesses, for serving people with distance healing, for easing people’s fears, and on and on.

They’re not wrong, certainly. During every economic downturn, many, many businesses start, and several of them become huge moneymakers down the road. This is a perfect time to have a home-based business. And we energy healers certainly have a great opportunity to share our experience and our gifts.

But during this time, with so many people worried and fearful about their own economic and physical well-being, reaching out to people specifically to talk about the opportunities, products, and services I offer is deeply uncomfortable to me. I’ve checked in with myself to see if this is just a fear holding me back, and I don’t think it is. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I started listening to the Shift Your Spirits podcast episode “Frazzled AF.” Then something shifted, and I was able to recognize it: When something big like this happens, lots of people go into opportunity or survival mode (start/build your own business) or service mode (offering their services, even for free), but I go into what I guess I’d call community mode. I reach out to people and ask them how they’re doing. I watch what’s going on among my friends. And above all, without even meaning to, I tap into the collective energy field.

And that leads me to the week of spring break. I’ve been trying to navigate these waters carefully. I just need to follow the schedule we had in the summer, right? Well, I’m trying. My kids are home, and my husband is home, and we still have essentially the same routine we had in the summer. But nothing feels the same.

On Monday, I had absolutely no energy, and not even caffeine had the slightest effect on my focus or energy. Working at all was a struggle, and I put in only about half of my usual day’s work.

Tuesday was even worse. I overslept. Because I’d overslept, I decided not to go through my daily meditation, grounding practice, or recitation of affirmations and the five Reiki principles. I couldn’t muster enough energy to cook breakfast, instead only warming up leftovers for the family.

I still thought I was fine.

I went through my usual morning routine of reaching out to people to ask how they were doing, talking about how I was fine and how my routine was not very different. I journaled a bit about how I was a little envious of people who have this time as an opportunity to be home and do whatever they choose, rather than working on as if everything were normal (though of course I recognized that not having income while they are home is not what most of them would choose).

Then came the next phase of my morning routine, which requires more concentrated mental effort. A lot of little interruptions happened, and I noticed myself start to get agitated. But I had only a few moments to notice the agitation before it exploded. My son was irritable and not easy to please, and I completely lost it, yelling at him.

I managed to calm down, and then when I tried to interact with him again, he said something that triggered me again, so I was back to yelling. I was not proud of my behavior, and I excused myself from the common areas of the house to the office.[1]

In the office, I tried to work in my management capacity for one of my clients, which involves a lot of interacting with their clients. This business has been experiencing some big problems for a few months, and I’ve been sticking with it, trying to help as much as possible while things are difficult for that client and that client’s clients. Almost immediately, I began getting text messages and phone calls from a particularly challenging client with whom I become irritated on the best of days. I replied to her messages with as much calm and diplomacy as I could, multiple times.

Then came a text message that sent me over the edge. I walked away from the office and the phone, separating myself from the situation. I started to vent to my husband, gesticulating madly, my arms flying everywhere. He moved in and tried to hold me and comfort me, but that set me off even more, because I didn’t want to be held. I physically pushed my husband away and yelled at him that I wanted to rage, that I wanted to hit something; I wanted to yell; I needed to get it out. I did not want to be restrained or comforted. And then I said some unkind things to him and stormed away.

I went back to the office and composed a text message to my difficult client. The text was not rude but made it clear that I did not appreciate the way I was being spoken to and that if it continued, I would likely not be able to remain civil. I meant to delete the message after composing it—a practice in catharsis—but out of muscle memory, my thumb pushed the Send button.

Then everything hit home.

I went to my bedroom and cried, ashamed at my behavior and my words. I know I’m only human, but I was also shaken because I honestly didn’t know where all of this was coming from. I cried it all out, purging the anger and the shame. I journaled about the situation and my feelings, to get them out of me and to examine them from all angles, to try gaining some insight.

Then my daughter came in to comfort me, and we had an exchange that proved to me that even though I had behaved in what I considered an abominable way for about the previous hour, my husband and I are clearly doing a lot of things right in the way we are raising our daughter (even if those things involve just not interfering with her innate tender heart and empathy). Then she left to allow me to calm myself further, and I heard her and my son conversing in the hall: he asked her why I was sad, and she explained. Then she encouraged him to come in, and he brought in some of his favorite stuffed-animal friends to comfort me, as she had done. Of course, I felt even better because, again, I’ve obviously been doing something right. (Though a small part of me reminds me that kids of abusive parents still love and forgive their parents, so I should not gloss over the fact that I behaved badly.)

Finally calm, I made lunch for the family, then went back to work and got a bit more done. I still couldn’t focus, so after maybe half an hour, I went back out to the living room with the rest of the family. My husband rested his head on my lap while we talked, and our son came over for some cuddles too. After about half an hour of that, I went back to work for maybe another half hour.

All told, I put even less time into work on Tuesday than on Monday, and I was still emotionally shaken. That evening, we had ice cream for “dinner” while watching a movie.

After my son had gone to bed, I journaled some more and finally had enough quiet reflection time to realize that my problem had been … grief: My behavior all through the day had been just like my behavior ten years ago when I was grieving my miscarriage, my eyesight, and my loss of freedom.

I wasn’t quite sure why/what I was grieving, though.

Overall, I have been seeing this global issue as a fairly “neutral” event that may be a “reset” point for the way the people in our world operate individually and as a collective. I’ve not been fearful, and I’ve been doing the energetic work of holding calm space to help balance out the fear and sadness in the world, recognizing it as part of the work I am here to do—especially given my privilege in being in an area thus far very little touched by the illness and food-supply issues. I don’t yet fear and am still living comfortably—tremendous privilege that I will be thankful for as long as it lasts.

Then, in my contemplation, scrolling through Facebook to see what the emotional winds were like out there in the world, to see if I was picking up and reacting to an overall emotional wind of anger and/or grief, I found an article about grief and how we are all experiencing grief in some form or another right now.

I encourage you to read that article, as it has very important points. Just like the Shift Your Spirits podcast had done, this article helped me recognize further what was going on inside of me:

I’ve been processing grief today. It snuck up on me because I’ve actually been coping well with everything, but today, I felt completely out of control.

The thing about feelings, they can hit even when you think you’re coping well. At least I recognize my own grief; that in itself is a blessing, because then I can face it and deal with it.

The last few paragraphs of this article are especially good, reminding us that we tend to have feelings about our feelings, and that’s where we get into trouble.

In my experience with grief, it’s not the feelings that “gang up” on us; instead, it’s our feelings about our feelings (our judgments about our initial feelings) that gang up on us. Allow yourself to feel the feelings, even if you don’t know where they’re coming from. Events like those going on in the world can trigger memories, emotions, and trauma you thought were long dealt with and healed.

I don’t think everything that’s going on has triggered any of my traumas that I thought were healed and dealt with, but I do think I was pushing myself too hard to keep working as normal—the way I work when I’m not trying so hard to hold calm space to help balance the collective fear, sadness, and anger. In essence, in trying to survive, I somehow managed to forget that I’m sensitive to the energies of the world and that they affect me all the time (one reason I prefer to live in the country and practice social distancing all the time is that I don’t have to filter so much of other people’s emotions) and that times of great upheaval on our planet require me to take more time for myself to ground and process than I normally allow.

Even if you don’t consider yourself sensitive, you’re picking up on it too. You’re affected by the media you consume, the news, the random comments you hear and see (even when you don’t consciously register them), and any number of other things. So please be gentle with yourself and care for yourself better than you normally would. Self-care is vitally important now. Whatever self-care looks like for you, engage in more of it every day.

And as the article about grief says, don’t judge yourself for your reactions and your feelings. Allow them and experience them. That is true self-care.

 

Note

[1] We try to teach our kids that if they feel angry enough to yell or throw things, they should try to separate themselves from the situation and then use coping mechanisms before they do something they’ll regret. I had not been able to separate myself earlier, but this was my chance.

****

My Services

Support in emotional, physical, or mental healing via Reiki session or intuitive reading.

Provide insight into how the energies of the next twelve months will affect you directly, through a personalized Year-Ahead Review.

Sharing messages from other realms (for example, from spirit guides, angels, earth spirits, or deceased loved ones). Contact me.

 

Watch this video if you are curious about how I prepare for all of my readings and Reiki work, and how I perform readings and conduct conversations with Spirit.

 

My Year of Shadow and Light (My Memoir)

Audio/Video (YouTube)

Written

 

Find Me Elsewhere on the Web

Facebook