A Turning Point

I hope you are safe and well. I hope your family and friends are, too. And I hope those we don’t know, and might not even like, are also safe and well.

I haven’t written in over a year. My last blog post described a new job that inspired me to set everything aside, including all this. I’d started The More Creative Therapist in the hopes of supporting a more inventive, eclectic, inspired approach to therapy, counseling, and coaching. I think we still need more of that. But it’s clear that over these past months, we’ve all risen to the occasion of the current health crisis in unexpected, creative ways. We’ve had to.

It feels like a turning point in so many ways. During the last week, “sheltering in place” began giving way to “getting back to business” as political and economic pressures mount. We will gradually return to a new normal, and there’s lots of speculation about what that will be. I’m fearful and hopeful at the same time. Maybe you are, too.

Here’s some of what I fear:

• Continued hoarding
• Haters hating even more
• Ever widening disparities in health and wealth
• Increasing despair
• More othering
• Global factionalizing, splintering
• Bombastic heroics
• (You know the rest….)

Here’s some of what I hope for:

• Acknowledgement of our collective vulnerabilities
• More sharing
• Gratitude (and not just the easy, feel-good kind)
• Recognizing and tending to the great ecosystem of which we are a part
• Deep struggle to know what matters
• Tenderness
• Not just happiness (there’s more)

A turning point is a cusp, a liminal place of transformation. It doesn’t just happen to us. It’s something we make happen in how we choose to respond. 

May we choose wisely. May all beings benefit.