Accepting the Change You Cannot Change: Courage in the Time of Coronavirus
When the pandemic first arrived in America I was seeing a person who kept insisting this was all nothing more significant than the flu and was all just getting blown out of proportion. When I told him I got a thermometer, he said, “Why would you need a thermometer?”
Reader, it was March, 2020.
I told him I needed him to be supportive in what I needed to do for my health and safety and he said, “How about we don’t talk about anything health and safety related.” He said, “You are the only person I know who thinks they or anyone they know is going to get Coronavirus.”
Reader, I buried my father in April, 2020.
When his city shut down tennis courts he rode around scouring spots that he could still sneak his way into to get a game in. He resented that people would need to wear masks, the bare minimum behavior change anyone was being called upon to make to protect themselves and those around them.
Many of us know a person like this.
Meanwhile, adapting was all I could think about. It was actually easier for me to change than to try to hold on to a world that was clearly slipping away. And when I thought about it, I knew why.
One night when I was six years old I went to sleep in the house I grew up in, in the Soviet Union. And the next night I went to sleep in a strange hotel in Austria. And in between I lost everything I’d ever known, and there was no going back. And no looking back. Old reality was swiftly over.
Leaving the USSR in the 1980s you had to say goodbye to everyone you knew forever. Your entire family? You’d never see them again from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Everything you owned? A “national asset” that didn’t even belong to you in the first place. You left an entire lifetime carrying only a few suitcases. And that was it. Then you were on the moon. A different reality. Different world. You didn’t know the language. Nothing looked familiar. You didn’t know where you were in relation to space and time. And then after Austria, you went to Italy and did it all over again. And then after Italy, you went to Boston and did it all over again. And then, in America you kept moving around and did it all over again. And then this lives inside you for the rest of your life.
A thing about having been a refugee as a child is that I had often found myself looking at my comfortable life, under a functional government (such as it was), and thought, oh, but this can all go away. The Americans around me seemed not particularly preoccupied with such concerns. And then, suddenly, in the spring of 2020, I finally felt adjusted to the place and time I was in. Deep survival mode was now congruent. Childhood experience of refugee life, an asset for nimbly stepping around unstable terrain.
This was something I drew upon in myself, but what were others leaning on to find the strength to quickly adapt to massive life disruption? So I asked this question out into the ether of Twitter —
This wasn’t about not having the economic resources to allow you to change your life — a very significant but very different conversation — this is about accessing the inner resources to face the reality that you had to. Without a centralized, coordinated mandate to change our behavior as collective participants of a society, it was left up to each individual to find the inner resolve to alter routines, overcome resentments, and reconcile cognitive dissonance — the outside world didn’t look any different, after all, when it was already time to act differently.
The replies I received to this question both on Twitter and privately opened up a deeply intimate and perpetually fascinating look into people’s inner reserves of strength, emotional resilience, and existential wisdom to traverse a totally unfamiliar territory for themselves and those they care about. Here are some.
Prior experience coping with change for physical and mental health …
Anticipatory acceptance of radical disruption…
Privilege (or, if you prefer, gratitude) …
C:
For now? Being able to work from home. Work establishes a certain degree of normalcy even though it’s arguably not normal. I still have income. But also nothing horrible has happened to me personally yet. I don’t really recognize myself though. Or my old life.
Katie:
Some respects have been really nice! No school has been HARD. But it gave us the chance to move up here, which was something we wanted to do but it would have meant my husband not going to the office every day, which would be a big deal (but now is the norm).”
Rachel:
Was planning to start working remotely full time when I moved in April (so day-to-day is a change, but mostly a planned change) + moving in with my parents (they’re helping with childcare, and we’re no longer paying rent or daycare). Plus the mentality of “hey, at least I’m now on the same coast as the rest of my family.”
Also a few family members outside of our household have gotten sick/recovered, so there’s definitely a mentality of “it could be way worse, and honestly, being healthy inside is fine.” So the tl;dr is a lot of privilege + I feel like it’s not even “it could be worse” — it’s “given the circumstances, things literally couldn’t be better.”
A:
Given that I have struggled with my health big time over the last 15 years, being unwell is very close to heart. Knowing that my immune system is compromised, it likely wouldn’t be great if I got it. Plus, besides that, my husband & I also think that logically it makes obvious sense to stay away from people as that’s the only way this is going to go away. Also I’m very cognizant of the fact that we are lucky that we can change our life from a financial / job perspective. Not an option for some people. Am grateful for that.
Muscle memory of resilience and endurance…
Gwen:
My parents had so many kids to take care of, some with bigger challenges. I had to take care of myself in so many ways. I’ve spent my whole life adapting to ever changing situations. I’ve always had to support myself, especially emotionally. It’s built a resilience in me that I honestly credit much of my success to as well. Nothing stays the same forever, even if we want it to…
Jackie
I’m used to change in some ways, so maybe it’s not that hard for me to accept that things will change? I moved a lot when I was younger, just kind of got used to things always shifting. I didn’t grow up in one town, or in one house, I think it kind of comes from that maybe.
Christine
I try really hard not to stress about the past and what I can’t change. Prob all the fertility issues helped with that too. When I was younger I would get frustrated and angsty with how things were. But fertility is something I gave 100% to for so many years and each time had nothing to show. You can’t control everything in life, so why try to fight against the things you can’t?
Seeing current struggles in the context of family adversity …
Robert
I think about my grandfather sleeping on random benches in Moscow for 2 years in the late 40s to avoid the random roundups. My dad being taken out of his institute for a month out of every year to farm potatoes in Ukraine. My mom saving soldiers from Afghanistan by implanting them with fake ports for kidney dialysis. My brother, one of the best students in Moscow, being denied entry to medical school 3 years in a row because of his last name. That country seeds one with resolve and a certain view of the world and what adversity actually is. Once you have that kind of perspective all of this is kind of clear.
A mission beyond ourselves …
Seth
Seeing Italy go down, the reported fatality rates. That was around when we got the news of Dad’s condition. The need to cross the country to make it back for Dad’s passing jolted my brain into a hyper pragmatic set of actions for prevention and mitigation. Def helped to have challenges to focus on.
Jess
I think of my kids and keeping them safe and educated. I think it all happened so fast I went into just solution mode. Like how do I get food, all of the normal day to day things, how do we resume school, etc. I don’t think it was a conscious decision. But something I reflected on later like, oh man, life is forever changed. I think it’s in my nature to want to be solutions oriented. Made me feel in control when everything was out of control.
Garry:
A sense of community & responsibility to family and neighbours, and a dash of stoic attitude I guess. Figuring out what needs [to be] done and gettin on with it is comforting.
Libby:
I have an outlook that a) I can be proven wrong — especially with data; b) there are things larger than us out of our control and c) I am one tiny part of a whole and I need to do my best to protect the whole in any way I can.
Haim:
Seeing many people getting sick, seeing that isolation can help and understanding from that, that isolation and all other restrictions are just necessary, otherwise it will be worse.
Angel
I’ve realized this virus is going to kill many who have no means to defend themselves or fight it. I don’t want to get blood on my hands. Also dramatically changing my lifestyle sooner rather than later means I’ve done my part to reduce the economical impact, which in turn will also benefit my life as well.
History
Business
Micki
Being a business owner made it very obvious very fast. Having to make plans and realizing how impossible it is to do that. Realizing how tenuous it all is because I was trying to make a business plan.
Lexi:
Knowledge of global supply chains and background in biological science also helped. You can understand how distortions in supply chains can impact industry, but if you don’t understand how viruses spread, what incubation periods are, how vaccines work, the difference between a bacterial and a viral infection, and how a typical way of operating a company is incompatible with controlling the spread of a virus… I can see how it would be hard to see the reality of how fundamentally different the way the world has to work is going to be.
For example, the amount of capital required for a large company to put sufficient health protections in place is hard to comprehend. We’re talking completely different operating models, staffing plans, 5–6x the square footage in an office, tech solutions for tracking employee health and monitoring people’s movements through office spaces… the list goes on.
I like to have realistic expectations and be able to prepare for the worst. Mostly just mentally preparing myself and figuring out how I should spend my time, making sure I’m spending my money wisely in case there will be a major disruption in my ability to work. Also, if I can foresee a breakdown in supply chain for certain foods or important goods, I can stock up. Knowing that most of it is out of my hands but it’s still possible to make good or bad decisions that could make your situation better or worse.
Holly
An acceptance of science and reason. There’s also a rejection of corporate profits over human lives. Looking at motivations. The people pushing the storyline that it was no worse than the flu were motivated to keep people working so companies wouldn’t lose money. The people warning that drastic measures needed to be taken immediately were looking at saving lives.
Science
Lisa:
My husband works with scientists who track these things. He is an ex-pharma lab scientist. Now does environmental health and safety for bio labs in academia. We lost someone in the Bergamo Italy wave too. We just knew it was real and we didn’t want to get it. We changed our lives during sars-1. We started stocking up on masks- his employer sent out sars kits actually — and food. I was pregnant at the time so I remember it was really scary. We got an Au pair and pulled our only son out of day care. But then the big wave didn’t happen. As my husband says, “we don’t fuck around with viruses.”
Spirituality
Justin:
I think it must have been from the deep psychedelic work. I’ve spent a lot of time traversing and coming back from realities that are starkly different, which takes understanding how to surrender. You get burned if you try to control / grip the moment.
Knekoh
When I first got the word we had to go home and I had to close my studio (and I knew because I had already lost my lease that I probably would never open again) I cried.
I cried Sunday and Monday.
By Monday evening crying was not making me feel better and I realized I had a nice roof and food in the fridge and my health and realized I was crying about what might [happen]. I was self obsessing about the future; not truly being in the moment.
I took on the mantra “be here now” and I kept chanting it again and again and again.
I remembered the lessons of Manipura our power/strength chakra that says…
All good is good, all bad is good.
Several people told me I should [do] Zoom classes.
I had never heard of Zoom.
That Monday night I went online and got a Zoom account and I watched many videos on how it worked.
On Tuesday morning I sent an email asking who would like to join me for a Zoom class. I pushed the furniture around in my living room; put my computer there. The students showed up and I said, I do not know what I am doing. And asked that after class they give me feedback.
The next day I taught another and every day I kept making huge mistakes but instead of crying I’d purposely laugh and say, “Be Here Now”
And here I am.
That is the long (yet still too short) version.
The short answer is My Yoga allowed me to accept the dramatic change. And I am becoming a better Yogi each and every day. Some days are easy some days difficult. But on those difficult days I chant “Be Here Now” and every day when I first open my eyes I say thanks for every single good thing in my life. When you start the day with gratitude you set yourself up to receive things to be grateful for. You are open and available.
So
Be Here Now.
Even when the present is painful. Be here now. Experience fully your grief but do not think about it. Feel it.
Be present! Feel your way through. Don’t think. Be!!!
I send you love and strength and unmitigated JOY!!!
PS
Remind yourself your grief is doubled because you have lost a loved one. I too did… which makes the pain triple fold. But you must be present to it. Feel it. Do not think about it… feel it. Be witness to it.
Only then may it pass. If you avoid it your are only letting it get stronger in storage and one day it will be a monster in the closet.
Be
Feel
Here
Now
Surviving things, unto itself, is meaningful
Jonny
I thrive on discipline and I thrive on hard work. Whether it’s going to the gym every day for three months cuz I have a goal for the summer or it’s working for 8 weeks straight alone in Bali, away from my husband and my family, locked in my room to complete something. I’m really good at hunkering down for a significant amount of time knowing that it’s going to pay off in the future. So as soon as lockdown came up, as soon as this whole crisis came up, I was ready. I’m happy to lock everything away for 2 months and hopefully come out in a good place. I feel like a lot of people aren’t willing to put in the dedication and the time, because it’s difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I know a lot of people can’t change their life radically because of socioeconomic reasons, but for the ones that can and have the privilege to I feel like a lot of people aren’t willing to dedicate themselves to something fully.
Making the Cut was the perfect example. It was the most exhausting, stressful, miserable two months of filming of my life, but I knew, just keep pushing, keep pushing, because the payoff could be so glorious. Also, I think it gives you hope. I mean, we don’t know if it’s going to pay off. We don’t know if we’re going to be able to go outside in a month. We don’t know — maybe I’ll get sick next week. But I feel like if you don’t have your eyes on the prize, it’s really hard to motivate.
What IS the payoff? What IS the light at the end of the tunnel?…. Resilience. Survival. Anything that’s thrown at you, that seems like it’s going to upend your life or throw you off balance, to make it through it with….focus, and with grace — yeah, I’ll use the word, grace. It adds to your resilience points. It adds to your survival points. And I feel like my entire career is built on racking up resilience points and cashing them in when I need them. Cashing them in as confidence.
No matter what your story is, it seems the most valuable thing to have in a crisis is an inner narrative for strength and resilience.
Also a bucket.
I hope that these thoughtful glimpses into other people’s narratives can help to draw a more detailed map to our own, and, perhaps, offer a little dose of anti-venom to denial, resentment, and dismissiveness. Conscientiousness, support, and care for one another matter always, but even more now.
I wish my father could have been able to read all of this. He would have been appreciative of everything people had to say, and of their letting me share it. So I’ll end with one final quote. A message my father would send me after he’d read something new of mine.
