Making Sense of the Senseless Pandemic

A plan to put life into perspective right now, and for the near and far future

“Not in his goals but in his transitions man is great.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you’re feeling completely upside down, this article is for you. All of us are in one way or another, including this writer. If I may, I’d like to offer some things which may well help you put what is happening to you and yours into perspective, present some strategies and ask you to please pass these along if in fact they are useful to you.

Some years ago, I took a course in how to manage Transitions. That course, designed and run by the late Dr. William Bridges, encompassed both the corporate piece of downsizing as well as the deeply personal, difficult aspects of personal transition. What he teaches is incredibly applicable right now, which is why I will share the basics. Kindly, you can go straight to Amazon, download the books and skip this article altogether. (n.b.I do not get any affiliate benefit from this, nor am I in any way formally affiliated financially with the folks who teach his work. For most of us, the books are all we need.)

I want you to have a combination of perspective, strategy and hope. You are in no way a victim. This overly-simplified version of Bridges’ material is intended to inspire you to dig more deeply into what it means to be in transition. It might be the difference between simply surviving and thriving during very challenging times.

First, definitions:

Change is what happens TO us.

Transition is how we feel about it.

The first, we can’t do much of anything about. Downsizing, job loss, a tornado, this pandemic. (Please keep in mind that this article is not addressed to those of you who have lost loved ones to Covid-19. That is a very different kind of loss and transition.)

The second, despite how it might feel to you right now, you and I have complete control over how to manage ourselves through transition. I didn’t say it was easy. It’s possible. You have to want to gain perspective.

Above all you and I have to do the work.

Bridges describes three basic phases:

The Ending: Something important ends for us. In this case, the pandemic put an end to many aspects of our lives, our worlds, plans, hopes and dreams. For example, by the end of today I was supposed to be in Boise, looking at new homes. Instead I am still in my house, without all my belongings, going to Goodwill to set up an interim kitchen. I have a career based on international travel and travel writing. To say the least, my life is on hold.

The Neutral Zone: A period of unknown duration, during which we have to manage without a lot of givens. Familiar signposts are gone. I liken it to having let go of one trapeze, and hanging in midair waiting for the incoming bar to slap your right hand. You don’t how long you will hang, whether or not you have a net below you, and whether or not that bar is ever going to connect with your palm. Many of you can relate.

The New Beginning: When we have reached some kind of new normal. Starting over with a different world, some understanding of How Things Are, what to expect going forward.

What to know about each phase and what you can do about them:

Endings

When something ends, often it means the loss of something. A way of life, a job, structure, a marriage. This pandemic is forcing the ending of a great many things for billions of people. Income, their businesses, job security, retirement plans.

Most Americans LEAP forward without giving any thought to how absolutely essential it is to recognize, acknowledge, and MOURN what we have lost. Truth is we have no idea whether what we’ve lost- other than if we have indeed lost a loved one- is forever. Much of what is on hold may come back. However, our sense of continuity and normalcy is shattered. That in and of itself is a major loss. When we don’t take the time to mourn our losses, they become massive bricks in our backpacks, making it nearly impossible to move forward, cope, and evolve.

What to do:

1. List what you have lost. For example: job, income, access to friends, your gym, plans placed on perma-hold, confidence in the future, college for your kids, retirement income from AirBnB, your precious vacation plans. List ALL of them. There is great power in naming what gives you great pain.
2. Take the time to honor and mourn what you have lost. As a nation this is extremely hard. It’s deep emotional work, like going through a divorce. Doesn’t happen overnight. But the process of simply listing, and calling out what you have had to forfeit is in and of itself cathartic. You’re naming what hurts. Facing it. That is the single most powerful step towards allowing it to move past you. What is right for us will return, possibly in another form. For now, what’s important is to allowing what mattered to us, what has shattered for us, to be gently and respectfully swept into past history. All of us are in this phase right now. Endings may well happen repeatedly, as things continue to change, and we lose other aspects of the lives we built up to now.
3. Find a way to do this formally. Some people write down their dreams, put the paper into a small box and burn it, as though at a funeral. It makes no difference. We need to have a wake for our losses. As a nation we lack formal rituals for losses that aren’t marriages or deaths. The Hispanic community honors fiesta de quince años to honor a girls’ entrance into womanhood. Some of our families have 21st birthday parties. This is the same thing, but we’re making a formal ritual to honor what we have lost. The formalization makes it real for us, and in making those losses real, we are far better able to let go. This doesn’t happen quickly. It’s an emotional process, which is precisely why we as Westerners would rather skip the whole thing, deny we’re in pain and move on. It’s also why so many of us cannot move on, because of the extraordinary amount of dead weight we carry.
4. If others are involved, find a way to gather as a group to collectively say goodbye. Bridges died before Zoom was a thing. Our ability to gather online and be with each other today is incredibly intimate. We need to see each other, respect each other, acknowledge each other. There is great power in the gathering for a goodbye.

The Neutral Zone

What to do:

1. Create interim scaffolding. This time, by definition, is full of uncertainty. About half of us find this period deeply disturbing, for we want some kind of plan. Assurances. Safety. Others, about half, thrive in this kind of environment. Neither is wrong, but each side has vastly different needs. While you and I are in The Neutral Zone, we need some kind of regular structures and goals. Whether this is finding ways to manage the kids and their ongoing education, or keeping ourselves busy, makes no difference. Establishing some kind of regular schedule allows people who need predictability in their lives to find calm. Feel safer in knowing what to expect. Meals at a certain time. Play times, dog walking. Time to read, research. Those who thrive in uncertainty might want to be mindful if they are married- as we almost always do-to their opposite. What is fun for you waiting for that trapeze is crazy-making for others. Capture your ideas. Find ways to establish communities online. Above all, if you are more than one to a house, please respect that their transition process is not your transition process. Both are unique, sacred, and there is no right or wrong.
2. Network network network. If this were anything other than a pandemic I would be advising you to get out and be with people. We can’t. So: Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter. Pick your communities. Then, please, DO NOT succumb to rumor mongering. DO NOT stoop to passing along wild and unsubstantiated information, no matter how tempting that might be. In times of great fear, there are people who thrive on this kind of evil behavior, capitalize on the natural tendency to listen to the loudest voice. This is how lynch mobs are formed, how people die, how societies unravel at the edges. Good people question. Verify. Validate. They fact-check. They do not leap to unfounded conclusions and assumptions, such as any Asian face is the enemy simply because the virus began in China. We’re better than that as a nation. Let’s please act that way. Pass along solid research. Share intelligent, thoughtful, sane articles. If you have a good idea that’s worked for you, share it. Those who reach out in such times to express love, gratitude, support and care are the real heroes. If you want those things, offer them first.
3. Allow for flux. Expect it. With the world affected, you and I and our families are at the mercy of many factors. Being willing and open to bring in new information is part of the skill set you’re building. Trust that first, you are hardly alone, and second, that others like you are just as concerned and scared. Knowing this, one of the best strategies is reaching out to others and finding ways to help out. Research what’s going on locally first, then see if your help is needed. Nothing reduces stress for proactive people faster than to be useful. When you are busy volunteering, you spend far less time worrying. Time passes faster, you feel good, and others are always grateful. Volunteering helps you cope with flux.
4. Stay engaged, active and involved. It is natural and human to want to crawl into a cave and hide. That’s victim behavior (although it is entirely appropriate and often necessary at times during Endings, let’s please differentiate) However, given the conditions of this pandemic, what that does NOT mean is to high five folks on the street, head to the gym and connect. It does mean to keep your finger on the pulses of those you love, stay engaged, but stay safe. Thinking that you’re all alone in this is not only a lie, but there are plenty whose situations are far worse off. Perspective is precious.
5. Take advantage of the time given to you. While this doesn’t mean skip the mourning part, it does mean that you and I may well have time to think, meditate, rest, exercise, take on new projects, finish books, or try a great many things that our previous lives didn’t allow for. Time to get to know our kids. Time to work things out with a partner or spouse or a friend where there were issues. That doesn’t mean a broken marriage can be saved. But the time to talk might well offer new perspectives, grace, and forgiveness where hot emotions left no room. And it may not. The point is, as Gandalf advised, while none of us wished to see such times. all we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us. Again, do NOT leap into all those things without listing and mourning Endings and Losses first.

The New Beginning

What to do:

None of us can know when this might be, or what the world and our own backyards are going to look like when things calm down. Some who have come to love the relative freewheeling creativity that is possible in the Neutral Zone might well resent the re-establishing of order, which for most of the rest of us will elicit a great sigh of relief. Our character is forged in the first two phases of transition. How we respected our emotional needs, the emotional needs of others, how we showed up to help and not harm, how we faced the inner demons of terrible doubt have everything to do with how we greet a New Beginning.

1. New energy in a new direction. Right now we can’t know what that means. However, there is going to be a New Reality, and in the context of that New Reality you and I are going to have roles. Some will go back to what they were doing. Some will have remade themselves. Whatever the landscape looks like there will be some rebuilding to do. If you and I have done the emotional work of the first two phases, we will be well-prepared to start over. Based on what I’m hearing, we are going to need all the energy, enthusiasm and skills that are available. You and I want to be ready.
2. New identities and new directions. For many of us, this could mean very good news. We’ve been able to shed things that didn’t work- aspects of ourselves that we simply could see before. We may have discovered new careers, new meaning, and a brand new way of life. There will also be those who are firmly entrenched in the past, who cannot move forward, who may well need our help. For many of us, and I can personally attest to this, the skills that we hammer into place during the roughest times not only remake us, but they forge abilities that make us far less susceptible to tough times in the future. The best example that comes to mind: Nelson Mandela.
3. Renewal. You can find great hope in a redefined way of being. It may not be what we planned or hoped for, but how we couch our circumstances drives how well we thrive. Optimism and continued hope even in the face of great loss rebuild people, communities, cities and countries.
4. Preparedness. There is no time, especially in a world affected by climate change, when things will ever “get back to normal.” Normal now is constant change. How you and I learn to deal with those conditions, how we teach our kids to be resilient in a rapidly-changing world, are part of what’s available right here, right now. There is no better proving ground than what is gripping this small blue marble. We need very much to be adaptable. How we learn to tap into our resources, find humor in the human condition, and refuse to be defeated by circumstances, nay-sayers and professional victims will speak a great deal to the quality of that New Beginning.

I’m not going to try to sell you the snake oil story that this is easy. Of course it isn’t. It’s wicked hard work. However, for many of us, simply understanding that transition is made up of predictable phases, that those phases come and go, and that all of us are experiencing these phases in our own unique ways help a great deal.

Perhaps the greatest gift the Bridges training gave me was the knowledge that every single emotion I was experiencing was normal. NORMAL. No matter what you think or feel, it’s normal. There is no supposed to, should be. Your emotions are normal, natural, human and real.

They are also ephemeral, fleeting, and can be let go as easily as you breathe out. Because often your emotions are based on impressions, rather than reality. That’s why it’s important to embrace them, feel them. They only have the power, value and meaning we give them.

Do your best to learn to sit with them, watch them go by, let them be what they are. You’re not going to die from your emotions. You will do far more harm to yourself being stressed out about your feelings.

This stuff works. I know because I have had to make myself over time and again. Through layoffs, a medical bankruptcy, terrible health problems, divorce. I’ve never been through a pandemic any more than you have. But I’ve been through plenty of major transitions. I honestly believe that if you will give these strategies a try, they may well provide the critically calming steps for you to feel safer in your own skin, able to get through, and even better, remake yourself in the process.

At 67 I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Life didn’t get easy. I got better at managing my way through the inevitable hard, hurtful, terrifying transitions. I want you to be able to feel the same, to imbue your kith and kin with the same confidence and humor, and to have faith in your ability to weather the storms. They won’t stop coming. But you and I and all of us can most certainly get through them, laughing right into the teeth of the wind.