THE INNER TURMOIL OF LOCKDOWN

In huggier times, funnily enough in Durham!
I have noticed that when major events happen in my life, currently the Coronavirus epidemic, my first reaction is to stop and be still. I wait quietly and try and hear something. It's as if I am listening for a signal. When I look back in my life, I have always done it. I do it even more when surrounded by noise.


When Princess Diana died I was in London the day after and I walked to Buckingham Palace where although there were crowds of people, there was an eerie silence; everybody lost in their own thoughts. And that's a phrase we use isn't it? 

We are all silenced by events that are devastating - think 9/11 - and then the noise comes as we try and make sense of it. 

Is that inner quiet space the sound of us meeting ourselves? It must be the moment where we try and process the enormity of the impact and work out how we proceed, if it is safe to do so, what the cost might be. It is probably textbook psychology.

The current crisis has been no different. The shocking realisation as every day new information is thrown at us, sends many of us scuttling to a kind of inner hibernation. And we wait. I am watching and waiting and listening for the universe to tell me it is ok. To be shown the way forward. Meanwhile I search and I engage with my fellow journeymen. I seek out solace in my family and friendships and I keep a sense of normality by some kind of routine in teaching.

I feel an emotional desert in many ways. There is a nothingness inside me, because I am rather inert. And I think there are two ways of being with this kind of thing. Either this kind of waiting in vain hope that something we are used to will show up or panic and overwhelm. 

What this crisis has shown is how many are hanging on by tiny threads. The mental health of the nation is being sorely tested and it seems to come in waves, pushed by the frenzy of announcements which bombard us. It is underlined by the necessity of social distancing and the experience of going out now which represents some kind of disaster movie: masks/marks on the floor/shop assistants full of their own importance guiding the public to stand apart or put items here or not take more than 3 of something. And inside we are either screaming or accepting.

In some ways those who shout out their inner turmoil might end up faring better; at least they are externalising the panic; those, like me, just keep taking the hit after hit, a calm exterior, a coping mechanism of patience personified that betrays a deeper despair. I am hoping this will lead to a processing that my brain can cope with. Our world has been turned into something alien. During my 61 years here I have had freedom in every sense; to have that curtailed is shocking and a salutary reminder of how life is for some others irrespective of lockdown.






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