HOLY SHIFT (PRACTICE THE PAUSE)

I don't know if you've noticed but...

we're all kind of stuck at home right now.

Or, if we're not actually stuck at home

(thank you immensely essential employees-you are the heroes of this life)

then you've certainly had a giant shift in your daily order.
Nothing is normal.
For anyone.

EVERYONE

is experiencing something different and new right now.

More than when any other time-

the whole world is being impacted by a force that is beyond 
our collective lived experience.
Billions of people are doing this new thing
for the first time ever
and we're being forced to do it together.
There's not a remote aspect to this challenge-
there's not a city or a country that isn't impacted.
And...there are no rules for this experience.
There are infinitely more things that we 
don't know about what will happen
than the things we do know.

For instance,
we don't really know who will get this disease
and be more likely to die.
We just know that a higher than usual percentage
of people are dying.
Although we're starting to notice patterns
we're not confident why some areas
are impacted more than others.
And even if we get an understanding of the COVID19
virus, how it infects, who it targets-
we won't understand the long term impact
for years to come.
It is all unfolding RIGHT NOW
and will continue to evolve.

Many of systems and protocols that
we've relied on,
will be rewritten.
The things that have worked for years
or months or even centuries
are not able to address this new experience.

Prophecy from the 'No Cuts' team?  I've built a patio during the time of 'Rona

Some of the systems and protocols are simplistic.

Things like eating in a restaurant,

shaking hands,

or smushing in with hundreds of strangers

to listen to a message in person-

are suddenly dangerous and unsafe.
Others are not new ideas but are maybe new ideas
to a majority of us who haven't had to think
through the impact of how these systems
effect ALL of us because in the old world order,
they just impacted those of us who weren't in power.
Systems like the one that requires you to be employed

to have access to medical attention.
Or the other one that says that if you can't work at your chosen profession
you must be lazy, dumb or somehow unworthy.

Or the one that says everyone can work from home
and be effective-even with children and sickness and technical challenges-
and if they can't, then they just need to quit their job to take care of 
their children/sickness/technical challenges.
Or the one that says if you don't have a savings account
that can support you for 6 months
then you deserve whatever comes your way.
Or the one that says this is the land of the free, home of the brave,
and if you need help, you're unpatriotic.
Or the one that says my personal freedom is more important
than our collective health and safety.
These systems have been in place for so long
it's 'just the way it is'.

Except right now-

nothing is the way it was.

But there's not yet a new thing to fill the space.

We're in this precious, holy, time of shift.

The thing about systems is they self-perpetuate.

The kind of power it takes to overcome the inertia created by

the weight of systems that millions or billions of people participate in

is astronomical.

And yet....here we are.

Overcoming.

Shifting.

Creating a new normal.
It's the great gift of humanity-
the reason we've survived and thrived
when we are the least likely animals in the whole
of God's creation to end up at the top of the food chain.
We adapt.
We create.
We evolve.
Much more quickly than most animals.
If our most ready food source dries up,
we can eat different ones.
If our climate becomes too cold-
we move or develop systems to warm us.
We are at our core creative beings
and survivors.


There is so much possibility on the table right now.
HOLY SHIFT.

This kind of possibility is a lot of things.

Terrible, scary, open-ended, 

uncertain, without limits or structure, adrift.

And also.

There is wide open space for something else.

Something new.

What could we create if we paused and considered.

What would we leave out of the new world order?

What if we could choose to create something different?
Right now.

Right here.

I've had a few new normals in my life and written about them.
If you want to hear more of my nattering about that topic,
click here or here.
But mostly I want to give you permission
to pause, to imagine something new.
We can do anything right now.
What feels like the next right step for you?
The one that takes you towards LOVE?
That is the next right step for all of us.
We need you to be brave enough to imagine it
so that one day we can all live it.