BONUS Episode: Riding the Waves of Self-Quarantine

Chris and Debbie sit down for a quick chat about the ups and downs of self-quarantine, social isolation, slowing down, and changing their plans.

In this rough-cut, impromptu episode, they share their feelings about worthiness absent of productivity. Listen in to hear what their thinking in this unexpected and unpredictable time.

They would like to leave you with this thought:

“This morning’s reading (How to Be Here by Rob Bell) reminded me that we’re all just pulling out plugs right now, collectively. The plugs that have kept us moving so fast as a society in the past–rushing from one day to the next–have largely lost their use: established social norms and contracts, activities we thought necessary but can no longer take place.

In their place we’re left with space–a lot of it (especially if we’re not in healthcare or essential services).

Robert Irwin (I don’t think he’s at all related to the famed, late Steve Irwin of Australia) says of this unplugging, ‘You really are bored and alone and vulnerable in the sense of having no outside supports in terms of your own being.’

So without the business to hide and numb ourselves from ourselves, we’re left with…ourselves. That does feel boring and lonely and vulnerable and even gross or icky, to sit with the parts of ourselves we’ve been ignoring with our business–SOMETIMES. But SOMETIMES, if you let yourself sit with it long enough, without hiding it away again with screens or news or food, you can move past the ick, past the place of boredom and loneliness and vulnerability.

It’s there that you can find a calmness, a peacefulness, a serenity, a knowing–that can only be found from being all the way out, completely unplugged.

It comes in waves, in this time, for me at least. I can give myself the time and space and freedom of being unplugged long enough to really know and see all of myself, even the parts I’ve been hiding away under all the business and stuff. Then I’ll plug back in–scroll or watch or read or munch–and the waves dip and pull me under once more.

But I know this about waves, they come in sets. There are highs and lows, white-capping crashes and small, rolling tides. Then there’s a calm–a time between sets, when the waters are almost smooth as glass–no ups and downs, just gentle rocking that requires no force or resistance with or against it. That’s where serenity can be found, in that space between the sets of waves where we can just be–present, unplugged, calm–all the way out on the waters of our souls.

May you begin to pull the plugs today, friends, whatever they may be. In doing so, may you reveal the depths of yourself that have been hidden away. May you give yourself the time and space and freedom to ride the waves of boredom, loneliness, and vulnerability, until you find yourself all the way out, in the calm waters of your very own soul.”