Learning from the Streets

It takes time during a crisis to think of yourself.

Takes time when you’re exhausted being the wounded to think of yourself. Takes time when you’re used to being on the receiving end, to carve out the you in the space. Takes time to give yourself permission.

If Coronovirus is about grief. loss. hurt. and the ending of something.

Then might there be opportunity to not only grieve. But name parts of that past that hurt or even abused us. Where our human existence was secondary to pressure to earn. Where humanities true identity of love, kindness, generosity struggled for existence, deemed ‘not the real world’ – too dreamy, too idealistic. Undoing the grief may take time.

And the pressure to be something even in this confusing time between is tantamount.

PhDs are meant to be written, Parents are meant to be professors of home schooling and juggle working from home, books are meant to be… the ogres of pressure still exist to stop people being anything other than discontent right now. And defending this takes effort. The incessant abuse continues.

The incessant pressure not to be happy.

Amazing that the same people that were trying to make us feel unhappy in the pre Covid state, are now heralding it back as if that’s about being happy in the new normal. When the rugs been pulled. Those holding the carpet aren’t going to let go.

I listened to Jennifer Gilmour on domestic abuse recently, and one of the phrases she uses was ‘to give herself permission’ to value, treat, think of herself, it’s so important. When we’re abused we feel powerless, small, insignificant, especially in situations of emotional abuse.

And I think it cuts both ways too, its not just giving ourselves permission to treat ourselves, but also to have crappy days, to have days when we feel rubbish, to feel just like a human person that’s going through the emotions. To be ourselves.

To be ourselves, and be closer to who we really are.

We dont need permission to be ourselves, we often just need to know that its ok. Coronovirus grief might take a while to get through, realising the abuse of the pre coronavirus existence may take a while longer to unravel.

So… give yourself permission.

If I was being dreamy id rewrite something along the lines of Ecclesiastes, and over lay it on a sunset and it would look something like this:

And whilst this is all good and true, and fits the situation of an end of year christian calendar, the reality is probably greyer, misty, flailing around in the clouds, just trying.

Mid Coronavirus grief will take time. Acknowledging the hurts the system of the pre coronovirus world gave may need considerable healing time too. Maybe that’s some of it now, the dawning realising that something else was also not good for us.

Everything is about to change, and so, denial, acceptance, grief and anger will all be part of it. With the joys of the past, there was also stuff that was abusive.

So fellow human, give yourself permission.