Even though I don’t watch the news and I don’t allow myself to surf on social media for hours but to get myself informed, I have noticed that people are finding challenging to find and accept their new normal.
One thing is to read positive quotes and ideas on how to deal with this challenging time but it is a different story when we are tested to put it all into practice.
Let’s face it…the COVID-19 has interrupted our lives big time…we have never experienced anything like this in the history of a world where we feel totally in charge at all times.
So being confined home with our kids, or parents, or friends and spending more time with our loved ones is not something we are accustomed too. Not going to the gym, to grab a coffee when we want, to go for a run when we want feels like our freedom has been taken away from us.
I remember when I was told I had cancer…I thought to myself is this real? 4 days ago, I came in to hospital feeling unwell and 4 days later I have Stage 3 Bowel cancer and I am about to have a life threating surgery?
I spend quite a few days after that waking up and thinking: is this real or am I dreaming?
Some days I would hang on to that thought for a little longer so I could feel in myself that there was a possibility that I didn’t have cancer.
I would just sit there and think it was a bad dream.
But slowly I learned to accept my new reality…I had 12 cycles of chemotherapy ahead of me so I had a long way to go so I needed to accept my new reality fast because the alternative was to be paralysed by the fear of having cancer and all the “what ifs” that goes into your head.
Accepting my new reality was an enormous part of my healing journey because as soon as I accepted that, I felt empowered to act and do something about my new normal.
So I guess we are living through this exact same thing right now, aren’t we?
Do we accept our new reality and put a new plan in place for what it is happening or do we keep thinking about the “what ifs” and “why me” and “why now” and focus on what we can’t control?
For me the quicker I accepted my new reality, my new normal, not only the diagnosis but feeling unwell 24/7, giving up my work ( I kept sending emails to my boss for a good couple of months after my diagnosis), feeling weak, vulnerable, accepting I couldn’t be or do what I used to before cancer…the more in peace I felt with my new reality, with my new body, with my new “me” really.
So I invite you to instead of fighting what is happening outside of us and everything that we can’t control, accept things as they are, work towards a plan that can help you deal with whatever situation you are in, help your family, loved ones around you to accept this new challenge with you.
As soon as you accept what it is going on, you will feel that life will become easier, the plans that you will be working towards won’t be as challenging, you will be able to come up with different solutions and before you know, your new normal is what you will know.
We human beings are incredibly adaptable and we can adapt to any situation if we set our minds to.
May this unknown time make us grow and learn whatever lessons we need to learn. May this unknow time make us be more compassionate to ourselves and others as we are all in this together.