It Happened to Me
What Happens When the Crisis Gets a Face? Emotional Turmoil!
Several of my loved ones are in intensive care. A crisis gets a different meaning when it finally gets a face. I mourn.
My writing focuses on the world after the crisis. I write about aligning the economy, ecology, and the human spirit because I think that it needs to be done. That action is long overdue!
It’s like waiting in the eye of the storm. I observe. I am curious. I look with wonderment to my fellow countrymen end women hoarding toilet paper and try to come up with some explanations. And alternatives…
Often I jump over the storm and try to give a description of the world out there. A more beautiful world. A world in which purpose matters. Where we’ll appreciate more values than just money.
A world in which we can breathe freely because we made the creation of clean air part of our business models. And clean water. And healthy soil. To produce our healthy food upon and phase-out hunger in the world.
I describe for instance why 2050 is such an interesting year to think about.
The middle bit of the transition is on my mind often. But I cannot find the right words (yet).
Yes, I do contemplate how we can get from the eye of the storm to the beautiful world beyond. But there are decisions to be taken. Many steps to be considered.
Should we take the fast road that will hurt the most? Or will we sugarcoat some things first and take the roundabout road that will hurt less but keeps us longer inside the storm?
Whatever road we’ll take, it takes guts to lead us through. It takes radical decisions. And most of our politicians, our leaders, don’t have those guts (yet).
They could have made things better ages ago. As I show you in this perfectly logical example of Indonesia.
But they don’t have the guts.
They still think money for a few rich folks is so much more important than life…
So, what makes us think they will do so now? Our politicians are often the ones earning money over the backs of others. I’m not so sure they will be the ones we need to be looking towards for help.
Do we have to stand up en masse and take ourselves through the storm? Show our leaders what matters most? Clean air, clean water, healthy food. Love. Care. Responsibility.
We all know deep in our hearts what matters. We’re just numb. Waking up is a process and it’s dynamically in progress right now. We’ve made the economy, we can very well change her. It’s up to us.
It really gives me hope when I see how many, wonderfully aware, young people take a stand and practice what they preach.
They care enough. They can see through the mist and find a purpose in life.
We should be prepared to hurt for a while. And it would be so fair if the people who earned big cash building this cardhouse economy, will contribute to the solutions big time…
And while I’m trying to find words for this inside of the storm and the road to lead us out, reality hits me hard.
Bam! A fist in my stomach. I gasp for air.
Corona gets a face for me. The face of a loved one in intensive care. And another… And another…
The storm is picking up.
Thunderous clouds darken the sky. Waves roar and throw their foamy heads against the rocks.
The water looks ominous. Deep, dark, and dangerous.
The light has changed color. Just like that.
One minute ago the light was still bright. A backdrop for merry birdsong. Chitter-chatter. Two squirrels playing hide and seek.
Now my boat is about to sink in muddy, wild waters.
I gasp for air.
My hand goes to my throat.
Lungs and grief belong together. I cough. And keep coughing.
I don’t have the words to rationally write about what happened.
So I’ll lend them from Joanne Troppello. She lost someone. I haven’t yet. Thanks, Kevin Buddaeus for directing my attention to her story.
There are many emotions attached to my loved ones in intensive care. Difficult emotions, old pains. And gosh, how it hurts. My body is cold. My head pounds. My heart bleeds.
Tears cloud my vision.
So this is what it’s like in the midst of the storm. I want to do all the things songs tell us we do in times of hurt.
Howl to the moon.
Curl up in a ball and hold my teddybear close.
Bury my head under the blanket and sleep until it’s over.
No wonder no one is yet ready to hear my stories about a bright new future. And how we can build that future together.
We have to feel first. And mourn. We are losing so much…
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-American psychiatrist, studied and wrote many books about dying and mourning.
In her world-famous book ‘On Death and Dying’ (1969) she describes a model of mourning. It identifies 5 stages:
- Denial — accompanied by avoidance, confusion, elation, shock, and fear
- Anger — accompanied by frustration, irritation, and anxiety
- Depression — being overwhelmed, feeling helplessness, hostility, and flight
- Bargaining — struggling to find meaning, reaching out to others, telling your story
- Acceptance — exploring options, new plan in place, moving on
Later in her life, she explained that the model was never meant to be linear. It’s a dynamic process. It’s not set in stone. Mourning is a personal matter.
We all go into it differently and we might use spirals to come out again. Taking longer for one stage, skipping another, or going back to some stage at some point in time.
For me, it helps that everything is okay. At times I move from being angry to feeling bewildered and confused. I don’t have to know it all. It’s okay to just be a body hurting.
So I meditate. I do breathing exercises. And I strengthen my lungs. They need to cope with the grief of it all.
Another person, who’s adamant we need to mourn properly before going on after loss, is Joanna Macy.
She has called her work: ‘The Work that Reconnects’ and it’s all about reconnecting to the nature of ourselves and the planet.
She tells us that feeling the loss properly will heal us. It’ll empower us. And it will also heal the planet.
Never a better time to do that, don’t you think?
So, I feel and I mourn. I wallow in it for a bit. I listen to music. I read poetry. Some of the writers I turn to in these times of mourning are the ones that touch my heart.
Writers like Gurpreet Dhariwal, Elisabeth Khan, Amy Marley, Selma, Salam Khan, Trista Ainsworth, Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., Misa Ferreira de Rezende, Francesca Brandani, Simona, Daniella Mini, Sylvia Love Johnson, Tree Langdon ♾️, Simran Kankas, Michele Thill, Bob Jasper, Andy, and several others.
Thank you for soothing my soul!
And when we’re all done mourning, I’ll know. Or you’ll tell me.
My stories of how to create a more beautiful world will be waiting for us.
It’ll give us a purpose.
It’ll make us feel alive big time!
If you want to connect, you can find me on LinkedIn or Facebook. Or somewhere crying my eyes out under a tree…
Thank you, Mike, for adding your wise energy to my words.
When this story was already written but not published yet, I read this one by Dawn-Renée Rice. It gives beautiful words to grief. And we’ve apparently both been inspired by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Thanks, Dawn-Renée.
Further reading
About the author
About our current economy and the future
