The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning.
Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.

Erich Fromm

As the weeks turn into a month, the initial excitement of being with our spouses, children, pets, and roommates will fade. And the hustle to reorganize our lives to work from home will settle into a new routine. It will continue to take time for us to find our rhythm and boundaries in a new environment, and to design a new work/life structure.

I am noticing in myself not so much a loss of emotional self-control but a loss of focus. This morning, I bounced around my home, jumping from task to task like a robot vacuum cleaner changing direction each time I met with an obstacle. My laser focus and discipline was momentarily high-jacked by this start-stop, herky-jerky dance through my schedule and list of activities. My mind is in the same jumble.

I have a hunch that we, along with our families and co-workers, will experience many seasons of emotions and responses to this world event as it evolves and impacts our lives. The longer this lasts, the more critical the effect, the closer to home it hits, the harder it will be to hold it together. And at a certain point, when we are tired, stretched beyond our physical limits, frustrated by the speed at which this storm is moving through and impacting our lives, we may boil over. Our emotions will spill out and may ‘slime’ an innocent by stander.

I have witnessed the boiling over, been a listening ear to a boiling over moment, and received boiling over emails. The boiling over moment for me is when the person feels full and over whelmed by the demands. When their mixed feelings tumble out as a breach in the dam. As the barrage of information and lack of knowns — in an event that has no end currently in sight — overtakes their mental focus and causes them to pop.

Take a breath. We are all going to boil over. Receive someone’s boiling over moment with an appreciation that you are a safe person with whom to lose it. That it is not personal to you. Give the person some space and time to let it out. Laugh with them if you can, and if it is appropriate. There will need to be many conversations and negotiations concerning our roles and responsibilities in the new design of both work and home responsibilities.

Most of us will rise in a crisis. When we need to pull together, it calls out our empathy, compassion and humanity. It grounds us in a perspective that showing our respect, love, and understanding for each other should be something we do regularly. We can shift to gratitude and generosity. We recognize that we are able to find a way through. And that we can always find something positive to do and a way to contribute.

There is no quick fix for this moment. What is required is time to plan for what will ensure our ability to be strong and healthy into the future— and a steady facilitation of each day’s plan.

• What is your personal strategy for going the distance?
• How can you support those who look to you for leadership to find their grounding?
• How can you give yourself permission to seek renewal and balance and help others to do this too?

My colleagues who were already working virtually before this event are a few steps ahead of the rest of us. But even they have expressed that the loss of freedom to move about and the lack of spontaneity of being home bound is oppressive. Those of us who live alone are missing in-person interactions. Those friends with full households are yearning for some personal quiet time.

Each of us is having the same, yet different experience at the same time.

For each of us there is something gained and something lost in the ‘new normal.’

If any needed a degree in Change Management, this experiential course has been thrust upon us. Degree certificates — along with stimulus checks — will arrive in the mail.

May you find something in each day that affirms your value, contribution, and gifts.

Be well, be safe, be kind.