SPINNING OUT IN PLACE
Before COVID-19 hit, I was a self-proclaimed solo-time savant. When my bank account permitted, you could regularly find me:
Perched on a bar stool at a local restaurant silently enjoying a multi-course dinner.
Abandoning friends at a concert to weave through the crowd and experience the electricity of a musical artist as if I’m dancing alone in my room.
Taking cross-country road trips and snatching up cheap international flight deals (companion-less excursions have quickly become my preferred way of travel).
As California rolled out stay-the-f-inside orders, I assumed that my experience of being #foreveralone meant that I was well-equipped for isolation. I assumed the biggest adjustment would be working from home and the rapidly changing safety protocols. I was not prepared to be knocked off my spiritual axis. Although uncertainty and misinformation floated around the internet, there was one consistent message: “These are unprecedented times, be flexible to others and kind to yourself”.
While this mantra being repeated by wellness influencers and well-intentioned work emails was nice in theory, I experienced an unintended consequence; I constantly invalidated my own feelings to give grace to others.
I could clearly see that we all deserved an extra dose of empathy and patience, but did not apply that rule to myself.
Self-advocacy and saying no became outlandish concepts as I tuned into the COVID-19 chaos and tuned out of my own needs. Often without noticing, our habits and routines take on spiritual meaning. Brewing a pot of Bustelo before heading out for my 20 minute walk to the BART stop created moments of peace that connected me to my culture and my intentions for the day. Carefully massaging six steps of cleanser, spritz and four-syllabled serums had become a full self-love ritual.
Quarantine siphoned the joy out of or suspended access to most of these rituals. I wasn’t proactive about filling in these blank spaces with new practices that preserved the magic I felt. Instead, I over-consumed news that flared my anxiety and lamented over folks not social distancing. Somewhere in between hammering away at work for 14 hours and flaking on FaceTime dates with my loved ones so I didn’t have to explain why I was wearing the same pale pink “depression dress,” I realized I should email my therapist and pick our sessions back up.
Almost immediately, she called me out on my thinking traps. I learned I’m an all-or-nothing thinker, which led me down a spiral of sacrificing my agency and, in the words of Kash Doll, doin too much. I’d accidentally internalized a call to be a good neighbor as a call to shift my boundaries and meet unfair expectations. The stories I told myself harmed my well-being, and I adopted strategies for re-framing those internal narratives so they did not consume me.
When life experiences a seismic shift, you have to be intentional about recalibration. My first baby step was washing my face before opening my laptop. Then, I hung my pale pink dress in the far corner of my closet. Slowly but surely, I began powering down at a decent hour, showing up to live-stream church services with my family over Zoom and venturing outdoors (masked up!) for extended periods of time.
Spinning-out-in-place may be a more appropriate name for my shelter-in-place, but I’m grateful that it has restored my relationship with spiritual exploration, challenged me to build new rituals and reminded me to hug myself daily. I hope my story so far provides you with salve and some sense of comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in however you’ve been handling yourself for the last eight months.
