Back to normal? No thank you…

“Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.”  - Gabor Mate from his new book, The Myth of Normal.

Have you noticed how more and more people are pushing us to get back to “normal?” I definitely have and my biggest response is always, “No, thank you.” The COVID pandemic and the collective trauma that all of us experienced has changed us. Significantly. In the work that we do, we see a deep calling for people to slow down and push back on attempting to go back to the way things were ... which actually weren’t working great to begin with.

If we can say that the pandemic offered us gifts in the midst of incredible overwhelm, uncertainty and trauma, I would say that it was the gift of slowing down. Without the self-avoiding defense of busyness, we were faced with the opportunity to look within and discover the magnificent beings that we are. Sounds like a great thing, right? And, let’s name it, really scary too. Our society has conditioned us to always be looking outside of ourselves for our answers, and to be in perpetual motion in the quest of achievement and accomplishment. But we are so much more than what we do or what we produce.

I recently listened to the Glennon Doyle podcast “You can do hard things” with guest Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry (at the suggestion of my dear friend Karen). In the podcast she names how important it is to rest, and how the world, more than anything else, is exhausted. She calls out the systems of capitalism and white supremacy as the social conditioning we have received that requires us to be perfect, productive, and blatantly unhuman.

It is time to reclaim our humanness, friends. Slow down. Allow yourself space to pause and check in with yourself. Prioritize rest. Reconnect with your community. Experience your life and your emotions in the present moment. Get back to normal? I think not.