Over the past several weeks, many individuals have been encouraged if not ordered to “shelter in place.” Not unlike when in the path of a hurricane or tornado, people are asked to keep still while the storm passes. Dissimilarly, this warning has lasted for weeks and portends to continue for months. How can we bring our work, our families, our lives to a stop, and then expect to step back into the world as it was? We can’t. Businesses have already closed. Schools have moved to online courses. Hospitals are being filled with people oftentimes waiting for care. Countries have shut borders and restricted travel. While life hasn’t stopped, it has taken a long, uninvited pause.
In that silence, we are riding out the storm. We don’t know when something we bring in from a walk or from delivered groceries might infect us. We too could become ill if not casualties of this crisis. Until then, we consider our mortality and the lives of those we treasure. We fill our days with computer work if we are lucky and with worrying about finances, food, and how to manage the future if we are not. No map exists for this storm. We have no precedent for what is happening. We move from day to day, week to week, and now into a new month, hoping there is a sustainable, meaningful, connected life available to us when we emerge.
Finding our way while physically separated is a lonely journey. We look to platforms that allow us to see each other, but when the program ends, so does our physical connection. We are comforted to know millions of us are on this same path. Reaching out to hear the stories of people also feeling isolated can provide momentary comfort. As mediators, we seek to resolve our inner conflicts in order to tackle the outer ones. We make peace with our past, our failures and successes, our loves and losses. We provide help when we see conflicts brewing. We remember the skills we have can help others and ourselves find the peace we desire.
In the end, we still hear silence in the streets, quiet from once-bustling businesses, many people showing strains from finances, and a rumbling that more loss will come. We know as mediators that mindfulness can help at such times. We trust that this heightened awareness can keep us centered for a new life and the ensuing, inevitable conflicts that will be upon us after the storm passes.