I would like to apologise, my April newsletter is a little late – I had to rewrite the entire thing, as the one I had drafted was written more than a month ago and no longer relevant. I then completely forgot to send it out last week – I have to remind myself what day it is! hehe

Nonetheless here we go.

I wrote this after being inspired by John Sanei.

At what stage is your lockdown grief?

The 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  I personally keep oscillating between the stages.

This is LOCKDOWN people – some have moved quickly through the stages and acceptance is where they find themselves, others are in denial – are we in a movie? Is this real?

Some of us find ourselves hopping from one stage to the other, like a ping pong ball, all in one day – as if we are experiencing lockdown bipolar.

This is the time to realise that whatever we think we know, is actually working against us. It’s time to let go of all the knowledge in our minds so that we may become vulnerable and perhaps even a little humbler than we used to be. I must consciously examine my life. Everything has changed and now my perception has altered in reflection to that.

When your current moment changes, then your past also shifts. Lockdown is a great magnifying glass to become consciously aware of everything. Our memories present themselves differently now. Whatever you were struggling with in the past will now invoke even more challenging feelings, may it be in your relationships, in your career or even in your own mind.

The thoughts and belief systems we had before has served us until now, we can either take this lockdown as a time to grow from those, look at our life and ask ourselves what about it is not true anymore and let it go or we can slip into denial, anger, bargaining, and depression.

You might ask what does acceptance look like

Well, as John Sanei said in his  talk – we need radical acceptance.

We can’t just accept something has happened and deal with the pain and suffering of grief because it means there is nothing you can do to change it. We need radical acceptance; it simply means that you are acknowledging reality. You are acknowledging what is currently happening – in the world, in our country, even in your own relationships during lockdown. You can say: OK! This exists. This is happening, how do I want to handle it?

Lockdown gives you lots of opportunities to practice acceptance. If you have a problem that you can’t solve but you can change your perception of it, then do that. If you can’t solve it or change your perception of it, then practice radical acceptance during your meditations.

Even though this lockdown is temporary, the gifts of it (should we choose to use this time wisely) will far outlast the panic.

Love, Tania