The Big Picture

It’s been about seven weeks since we woke up to our new reality. Distancing. Isolation. Self-quarantine. Thoughts of contagion. Thoughts of worry, anger, fear, rage, desperation, and loneliness. Impatience with our particular circumstances – whatever they might be. Cabin fever. Masks, gloves, sanitizing lotion, Lysol, and bleach. Distress, pain, and despair. And back we go to fear and anger.

We connect via Zoom, Skype, Facetime, Google Hangouts, Whatsapp, and so many more. We remember people we have not spoken to in years. We feel warmth in our hearts for those whose calls we may have just recently ignored for lack of time in order – or so we told ourselves - to do something more important. And back some go to fear and anger.

Global inequality is at an extreme, transnational corporations, Silicon Valley, and the world of hedge funds and investment banking all hold the citizens of our world prisoners in their tiny drudge-filled slots with no hope of making better lives for themselves. Materialism reigns supreme, the fashion industry, influencers, and social media keep superficiality at extreme, god-like levels, climate change runs rampant through our entire earth and atmosphere, and so few are paying attention. But now, I believe, many are sitting up in ways that go far beyond what they did before, and are doing more than simply paying lip service to the recognition that there is a need for deep and profound change.

And so – despite all of the above, and despite our distancing and isolation and quarantining, there is hope in so many of us. And not only hope, but for many there is a sense of recognition. We’re all in this together. All of humanity. We see how we are all connected, and have been connected, although just recently we might have easily denied it. This – the pandemic - is a collective issue. All the other ills I listed are collective issues as well. And the pandemic has created a pause. Therefore, many are thinking in new ways. So the pandemic is also a collective potential.

Countless organizations, groups, and individuals are talking about it. The potential lies in what we make of this so that we are able to come out the other side not only contemplating, but already having begun the process of putting in place necessary and urgent changes in the state of our world.

You may be reading this with derision sketched on your face. Changes, you ask? Really? And how do you think those changes will come about?

I don’t know. All I know is that since the beginning of the realization that this was a different problem than just about anyone alive had ever experienced before, I began asking myself what the big picture is; what the big picture was going to become, how the big picture could be understood and made sense of.

And now, after observing for more than seven weeks much of what can be observed, or that I have access to, I have seen two things, repeated over and over, that give me great hope.

The first is logistical: this is not going to be over any time soon. Oh yes, some things will go towards what people might call the old normal, and yet not truly be the old normal, because we can’t go all the way back there. We all know that until there is a solution, a vaccine, a cure, the old normal is simply not possible. Crowded offices, bars, restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, stores, public events of any kind that imply a gathering of many people, are simply not feasible for now, and not feasible for the foreseeable future. Any kind of work that involves agglomerations of staff as opposed to remote work, faces the same issue. As do business and leisure travel, group sports activities, and so much more. Thus, logistically, until a solution, a vaccine, a deterrent for continued contagion, is found, none of the above is going to happen any time soon.

That implies that we continue to distance, isolate (even if to a lesser degree than for the past couple of months), potentially self-quarantine if the situation warrants it, and simply not go back to business as usual.

The second element I have observed that gives me great hope is inextricably linked to the first, because this second element requires, I believe, more time to marinate in the human mind, heart, and spirit. Many of you will have seen the same as I have: an emerging awareness of our connectedness on levels that reach far beyond simply being members of the human global community. You will have seen how in so many ways the world has come together virtually, to connect on that human level, via events on our digital screens that have united us with so many others. Events that might be concerts, speakers with ideas that move us, spiritual leaders, singers, actors, health professionals, politicians, and so many others coming together to present us – virtually – with so much that unites us. To speak of love, gratitude, compassion. To remind us of connection. And to remind us that we simply can’t go back to business as usual.

On some of these occasions, and when I contemplate the big picture concept that has so fascinated me since the outbreak of this pause in our lives, I have caught myself thinking: it can’t end yet. It’s too soon. We haven’t had enough time yet to see where we should be … where we could be going, and so, of course, when I read the cautionary statements that we need more time to resolve the virus, and that things will not be as before for quite some months, perhaps even years, a part of me almost rejoices.   

If we were able to resolve it all today or in a few weeks, we would go back to business as usual. Nothing would really have changed beyond the hundreds of thousands of dead (or millions), the lost jobs, businesses, and ruined finances of so many, the health of yet others who survived, but whose physical well-being has suffered a great decline due to the fact that they were infected. Those changes are monumental, life-changing, harrowing, and heart-breaking. But if we go back to business as usual, and simply try to move on from there, then I have to ask: but what was it all for? To create such devastation and to not learn from it; to not begin to fashion a new tomorrow precisely because of it?

So I welcome the time we are asked to be patient. I welcome the fact that we cannot – yet - get our lives back on track. I welcome the fact that we will continue to have time to contemplate what this might all mean. Because by continuing to come together as connected humanity, as intermingled molecules, and by realizing that we are indeed all one, we may find, by the time a solution for the virus is created, that there is a new way forward, and that we do not, after all, have to go back to business as usual, but that we will find ourselves co-creating a very new and better world. I hope to see you there.

NOTE: This is my May 2020 Newsletter. If you wish to subscribe in order to receive the monthly articles, please sign up at the top left of this page

***************

VIDEO COURSES IN ENGLISH


See the preview (click the title below) to my online video course:

Now Available

"Fatherless Women & Motherless Men"


***************

See the preview (click on the title below) to my online video course:

Now Available

"Freedom From the Torture of Your Thoughts"

**************************************************

See the preview (click on the title below) to my online video course  

  NOW available

"Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin"

  *****************************

CHARLAS EN ESPAÑOL EN YOUTUBE

Los enlaces a continuacion no sirven, dado que el canal de YouTube de Mindalia ha sido eliminado. Por tanto, las conferencia mias se pueden ver en mi propio canal de Youtube pinchando en este enlace


Vampiros energéticos: Su efecto destructivo en tu vida

*******************************

"Límites malsanos y autoestima: Tu felicidad y el amor hacia ti mismo"

****************************

"Basta con la tortura de tus pensamientos"

****************************

"Soluciones para personas emocionalmente inaccesibles 
y con dependencia emocional"

****************************

Narcisismo y Psicopatía: Vivir sin Empatía

****************************
Relación espiritual y sexo en pareja

****************************
Elige hábitos para llevar una vida de bienestar

****************************
Morir: Un enfoque espiritual

****************************

Amor sano o disfuncional: ¿Cuál es la diferencia?

*****************************

BOOKS - LIBROS - BÜCHER

Also visit my book website: www.gabriellakortsch.com where you may download excerpts or read quotations from any of my books (also in Spanish & German). My latest book Emotional Unavailability & Neediness: Two Sides of the Same Coin is available globally on Amazon in print & Kindle. You can also obtain it (or any of my other books) via Barnes & Noble.

Books by Dr. Gabriella Kortsch (English). Available globally in paperback or Kindle e-book versions

Bücher von Dr. Gabriella Kortsch (Deutsch) ... JETZT bei Amazon (Taschenbuch oder E-Book) erhältlich 

DEINE SEELE UND DU

  

Angefangen mit Rewiring the Soul - auf Deutsch: Deine Seele und Du, jetzt weltweit erhältlich als Taschenbuch oder Kindle E-Book (Blog hier), werden auch meine anderen Bücher in Zukunft auf Deutsch bei Amazon erhältlich sein.

Libros por Gabriella Kortsch (español) ... ahora en todo el mundo en Amazon en versión bolsillo y Kindle

Note: Also see my other other blog The Tao of Spiritual Partnership, so named for another one of my books. Click here to visit the blog and/or to sign up for the feed. 

My blog posts are also featured on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest & you can find me on Instagram