Are you a woman in mid-life or above who’s ‘fed up’ with Covid 19? Or are you still very much in the middle of all the implications this has thrown at you, both as a society and at you as an individual?
Have you been forced to re-examine your priorities? Even the quality of your relationships? What about the KEY one, with your partner? There are many women who’ve needed to tread the thin line between longing for his practical, supportive love, and wanting to ‘nail his butt to the mast’ for refusing to step up! A female comic once said the tension between these two priorities was a great definition of stress!
Yes – Covid has affected me, along with all those in my age range of ’70 something’, in my capacity to get out there but avoid crowds – thank God for my supportive girlfriends! And of course in my own case I have also been focusing on completing my book: ‘How to be a Widow: Powerful Transformation through the Cocoon of Grief’ whilst I healed from the out of left field devastating fall I experienced almost 12 months ago in Bali, which necessitated hospitalization in that country and a hip replacement.
And to be honest, not only was I healing physically from this trauma (including learning how to do something as basic as walking again), but also healing emotionally and spiritually, as my confidence got ‘knocked for 6’. I went to Bali 12 months ago feeling like a ‘bad ass goddess’ – but returned feeling initially like a little old lady with white hair and a cane, who was pretty useless to Society at the time. Those of you who know me will realise this was NOT that energized, feminine, sassy woman who wanted to get her work out globally!
As a result I needed to sit initially in that uncomfortable place where I had no idea why this had happened, or what to do in the future. Have you ever experienced this? Sometimes we need to seek in earnest (which was my predicament), but sometimes it can be so painful we just want to ‘distract ourselves and run away’ – bury our head in the sand, decide that we don’t need a decision just yet, etc. Are you familiar with this? I sure was!
So I sat in that Rehab hospital in Brighton and reflected, meditated and journalled (a powerful trinity of intentions) – until it occurred to me I could complete the book I had commenced 8 years before on my incredible journey through that ‘cocoon of grief’. And 2 weeks later it was revealed to me that I could also become a speaker based on the fact that I would be a published author – great I said to myself – that’s one for the books! But at heart it was my ego picking up that I could still be worth something after all these months of feeling incompetent, foolish, and at rock bottom….
And it stayed that way for several months as I worked my way through this creative writing period, aided by my amazing Book Writing Coach Jennifer Lancaster from Business Author Academy. However under her tutelage and with increasing zest for the way the book was developing, a change developed in my mindset. It was subtle but profound – because I began realising that this book really could positively impact the lives of even hundreds of widows around the English speaking world in coping with their own profound loss of love and subsequent grief. There could be light at the end of that dark tunnel, that cocoon that wanted to wrap itself around them where nothing made sense anymore – but transformation was beginning to happen internally, often without them understanding this! And as my heart became more compassionate and I began to feel the desire to simply serve other women in this situation, ego woke up to the fact that it was not about me but about the lives of all those that this book would touch – and stepped aside. And I am so grateful that I had this opportunity.
It really was ‘the fall that changed it all’ for me!
What about you? Is there something unforeseen, seemingly negative and completely out of left field that has happened to you in these past 12 months? And of course Covid 19 may have contributed to this? Are you still feeling like a victim that something so devastating has happened to you? How do you cope with these completely unexpected, unforeseen, uninvited and unwelcome events? I trust that you allow your feelings some kind of sway? Because you don’t need the patience of a saint my friends! Emotion is e-motion, energy in motion, which needs to move through you so that you can move on! If you continue with more of a negative mindset, you are in danger of suppressing these feelings deep into your psyche, and bottled up feelings can contribute to enormous stress in your body, resulting in dis-ease. So let it out – you don’t need to give yourself a ‘spiritual bypass’ so you don’t feel the anger, ambivalence or anxiety that may come up for you! But once these are recognized and expressed, you can move on to explore more of the options that life may now be providing for you!
Be very kind to yourself my friends – we are in this together, so trust this process and work in with any ego which may arise to help you to move into the service of your soul agenda!
Beverley Rilatt-Richardson, 6th Oct 2020
