Hello my sweet friends. We made it through another week, and I’m so happy to find you all here with us on this Sunday.

How is everyone doing? How are we feeling?

I know for me personally, I’ve felt a wide range of emotions during our second full week of social distancing/staying at home. The first week felt a bit like a dream, was it even real? What was really going on? We were all adjusting to a new normal. This week I felt a stark dose of reality. I watched lives change instantaneously. Dreams shattered. Plans cancelled. Opportunities lost. And all of us, doing our best to pivot based on completely unprecedented circumstances.

It’s all a bit much to take in, or even comprehend any of it. What I do know, is that each and every one of us are reeling, to various degrees, from a feeling of disappointment and loss. No one comes out of this kind of circumstance unscathed, which as weird as this might be to say, presents us with a form of solidarity knowing that we are all in this together.

Disappointment, under normal circumstances, is uncomfortable but manageable. In these very trying times, it can feel like an added burden, that makes you feel completely lost and inconsolable.

I have good news and bad news, in regards to feeling disappointed.

I’ll give you the bad news first, I can’t teach you a trick to turn back time, or make our circumstances desirable again. If I could do anything to undo the pain and hurt we are all feeling, I would do it in a heartbeat. But we all know that’s just not how life works.

The good news is that every seemingly closed door presents some sort of new opportunity and possibility such as new potential outcome or an expansion of what is really possible. Even if this is really hard to swallow while the pain is still raw, time of course will help us to heal and see that life will give us something to look forward to again.

I always want to give you tangible tools to help you move through difficulties. This week, I have two actionable steps: grieve and dream again.

In this time of deep hardship and sadness, remember to allow yourself the time and space to grieve what is happening for you in the moment, what could have been, and the feelings of lost opportunities for what might have been. Give yourself permission, and take the time to feel the deep sadness for the lives that have been lost. Your goals and dreams and visions for your life deserve to be honored, even if they don’t unfold as we would have liked for them to. Often times old pains flare up unexpectedly when we don’t truly take the time to process, grieve, and hold space for what was.

Subsequently, it’s important to open yourself up to the possibility of new visions, of new dreams, of new opportunities. Lingering in the pain of something lost, for longer than needed, could lead you to feel stuck, anxious, and depressed. Just because something didn’t work out for you in the way that you had hoped, in this moment, doesn’t mean that life doesn’t have something spectacular waiting for you around the corner. And I do believe, that in these difficult moments, holding on to the hope of something beautiful on its way for you, gives us the strength to persevere.

I write all of this to you today, not to diminish or belittle the hurt you may be feeling, but to offer up a sense of solidarity, a glimmer of light out of the darkness, and hope. These are extraordinarily trying times. If you can, try to find some joy in the difficult times,  and see good that is unfolding in each moment. Allow yourself to keep dreaming and feel hope for what is to come, even if we don’t exactly know what that looks like.

I love you!

Michelle