The Blah of the Pandemic

A Personal Reflection

When the pandemic landed on the Canadian shores, with slight embarrassment, I watched the tidal wave of infections with a mild fascination. I was relatively safe.

My daily routine remained relatively intact. I woke up every day, fed the cats, did my morning meditation and personal work, walked the dog, talked to fellow dog-walkers, shared stories, shopped, cooked, talked to my family on Zoom, and watched Netflix. Client sessions moved online as the first lockdown shut everything down in my neighbourhood – schools, my hairdresser, my local business where I frequent, restaurants, my chiropractor. All the places that expressed how I lived my life were closed. My travelling came to a sudden halt. I didn’t mind having a travel holiday. I was growing weary of being on an airplane 14 times a year.

But every morning as I walked out the door of my building, I was reminded of the magnitude of what the world was experiencing. It hit me with a frigid blast of eerie and deathly quietness. The skies emptied of airplanes. There was no roar of cars speeding down the expressway only a kilometre away. I easily jaywalked across the street. The quiet gave the birds the stage for their song to hear for blocks. Then there was the 30-minute wait to buy groceries.

During those first few months, I took refuge in “we are all in this together”. If we all do our bit, then we would be out of this apocalyptic scenario quickly. I did my bit. I kept my distance. I walked on the street to avoid close contact with people. I wore my mask inside. I didn’t see my family or friends. I obsessively watched the daily case numbers to see the first hint that the tide was turning and we had reached the peak. All I noticed was how the curve kept getting higher with no sign of abating.  I tracked the astrological significance and held a dream group for people who wanted a place to process their inner experience.

First, there was the discussion of zoom fatigue with so many people working at home. The countless hours of being stuck in front of a computer screen trying to connect with people and fashion a semblance of relationship and emotional resonance. Everyone could relate to the zoom fatigue. It became a studied COVID phenomenon with biopsychosocial explanations.

My hair grew to a place where it hadn’t been for years. I took to cutting my own bangs. A shaky and uncertain hand hopefully could replicate the fine edging that I had been used to. It didn’t work.

Then the second COVID wave followed by the third wave. I stopped keeping track of the case count. I turned off the news. I took refuge in more Netflix and ordering take-out.

Then when the third wave hit the province where I live, I felt with a thud the growing and pervasive weariness of the limitations and impositions that governments placed in what seems to be a futile attempt to stop the spread.

It became clear that we are not all in this together. Some were safer than others. I was one of the lucky ones – protected my skin colour, my affluence and my economic status. I didn’t know what to do with that.  The pandemic cracked open the veneer of a system that was broken, highlighting the social inequities, systematic racism and economic privilege. World governments fought valiantly with an unseen enemy and were losing badly as the case counts escalated.

More and more, my own mental health was suffering. It didn’t feel like depression. I was confused. A number of projects on the table were exciting to me and gave me something to look forward to. They weren’t enough. I was definitely feeling worn down, weary and incredibly sad for the collective state of affairs; unsure where I could make a difference.

I was not alone. Many that I talk to had the same feeling

There is a word for it – Languishing

Adam Grant in his New York Times article named the common symptoms that most of us were feeling – lack of excitement, blah, weariness, confusion, fogginess and stuckness.

Grant maps out the experience of what he calls the neglected middle child of mental health. It lies in between an experience of thriving or flourishing and depression. It is an experience of stagnation and meaninglessness. Languishing dulls our senses and disrupts our motivation. We unconsciously drown in indifference and become more solitude.

For some spiritual teachers like Mirabai Starr, even those with active inner life and spiritual practices are finding the deep soul weariness and being worn by the limitations of lockdowns. This is a historical and life-altering moment in time that is presenting us.

In an interview on the CBC’s Tapestry, Professor Ayesha Ahmed speaks about behaviour that is indicative of living through a system-wide disaster. In lessons from a war zone recorded in the early days of the pandemic, she observed that we can hold our breath for only so long. Unless we find new ways of being and doing, we will run out of steam and will feel sick. The emotional strain of living through a global disaster is real and that living through a pandemic is similar to living through other types of disasters that include long periods of sustained confinement and not being able to see friends and family.
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Name it and take heart

Collectively we are going through a dark night of the soul and as a species, this time is revealing the glasshouses that we have built for ourselves.

Take heart.

There are a few things that we can learn about this.

Dr Ahmed reminds us . . .

We are not going to feel like this forever.

We need to see the light in the darkness and be open to letting the world show us another way

To use the opportunity to understand our role and our ways of being in the world.

And if you can amidst kids, work and all of the pressures that this time places on us, meditation and quiet reflection might point the way forward; examining your outmoded belief systems, ways of living that don’t work anymore. if we are lucky, we might see the light and beauty in everyday things.

Copyright Christina Becker
May 2021

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