Everyone is talking about it. It’s been all over the news. The hashtags are all over social media:
The New Normal. That’s what many are calling life-as-we-know-it during this pandemic called Covid-19 (Coronavirus) that is turning our world upside down. Many things have been put on hiatus indefinitely – traveling, hanging with friends, going to school, church, work, etc. For most of us our daily routines have been largely interrupted. With no clear end in sight, people are starting to panic.
Global anxiety is spiking. It’s evident when you enter a grocery store. Unemployment claims have skyrocketed. The other day I drove past a car and the driver was wearing a face mask. Inside the car. Things are changing, many might say, for the worst.
I get it. Readjusting to a different routine is hard, especially in the beginning. Facing uncertainty over your bills, your job, your health, and your lifestyle is stress-inducing. Yet, as a country, it’s nothing we haven’t faced before. My older sister works in the healthcare field. She is on the frontlines of this pandemic everyday, witnessing firsthand how paranoid it’s making people. She told me a story about a patient she had who lived through the influenza outbreak of the early 1900s. He remarked, “We’ve gone through this before with the flu. It was the same way back then.” As we know, influenza never left but the world adapted to it. We developed a vaccine. We moved forward and learned how to deal with it.
Photo from the Spanish Flu era
My Normal
Stress and anxiety has been my normal for the last 15 years. Seldom were my thoughts not in a tailspin. For a while, the sky was always falling for me.
Now it seems the sky is falling for everyone. Stress and anxiety is the normal state for us all.
Oddly enough, while the world is all a panic, I feel at my most calm. Sure I wonder when I can go back to work or if it’s safe to go outside my house. I have the same concerns as most of society right now. What puts my mind at ease is knowing I’ve been through this before.
In the past, during an anxiety attack, I would feel overwhelmed and uneasy. Like things were spiraling out of control or like things could go wrong at any given moment. I never knew how I was going to make it through, but somehow I always did. I’d find my way to the other side. I’d get past it.
Our New Normal
Photo by Retha Ferguson from Pexels
Though we’re living in uncertain times, I am certain we will get past this.
We’ve been through this before. As a country we’ve seen our fair share of hard times. Within this century, we’ve endured 9/11, the crash of 2008 and we’ve survived them.
You’ve been through this before, too. Maybe not in the form of a global pandemic but you’ve been bored before. Perhaps you’ve been out of work or you’ve wondered how you were going to pay the bills, how you were going to make it. You’ve stepped into the unknown before (Frozen 2 reference, anyone?) and everything turned out okay. Somehow you made it through.
Much of this is still uncharted territory, which is why we need to give ourselves time to readjust. It can be hard to adjust to something different at first. It’s possible you’ve never had to stay home for weeks on end or homeschool your children or work under extreme conditions (for those in healthcare fighting the good fight).
Change can be uncomfortable but try to stay focused on the positives. You’ve been asking for a break from work, heck, you needed one. Now you have it. You wanted to spend more time with family or catch up on old hobbies, now you can.
As my friend and fellow blogger Jocee says on her blog, Sundays With Rae, consider this a brief pause in your normal life routine, and get ready to embrace the new normal. It may be awhile before things go back to the way they were before. If they ever do.
All I know is, even if they don’t, we will be okay.
We’ll get through this.
Photo by Helena Lopes from Pexels
What’s been the biggest change in your life since the coronovirus outbreak? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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