Tag: new normal

Posted on

The normal of now

I was struck by a recent Seth Godin blog post, in which he addresses something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It’s titled A new normal and the take away message I got from it is that every moment brings its own “new normal.”

True, some are more dramatic and far-reaching than others, but we experience them repeatedly throughout our lives. At the top of my personal list of “events that turned my life upside down” are the breakup of a serious relationship in my early twenties; the death of my mother; and the stillbirth of my baby.

I think what’s adding to the current challenge is that it’s not just my life that is turned upside down — it’s everything. When it was my own unique personal tragedy, I could find comfort in the continuity and steadiness of life all around me. But nowadays it can feel like there is no continuity; that there’s nothing steady.

So of course we wish things would get back to normal! Or as Seth puts it: “We’ve got a deep-seated desire for things to go back to normal, the way we were used to.”

But I find myself thinking about how people must have coped during wartime — as in bombs falling and cities being invaded and “life as one knows it” being completely and utterly destroyed. That gives me some perspective.

In these truly unprecedented times, I’m trying to deeply accept the fact that all bets are off. The lessons we’re currently faced with used to feel optional but now they’re absolutely compulsory: Be here NOW. Appreciate the present moment. LOVE, period.

As Seth says at the end of his blog post:
“There’s simply the normal of now.
A new normal. This too shall pass.”


Posted on

All new, not yet normal

We can’t sing together as a choir right now.

So we’re all putting together remote, individually recorded, then cobbled together, videos.

But so many new levels of technology happening all at once is daunting for many of us.

And the frustration is double if it doesn’t work: you lost the battle with the technology and you don’t get to be part of the choir video!

It will get easier; and then maybe we can settle into a “new normal.”

Posted on

Remember!

It’s been just over a month since the end of The Week That Was (aka Ananda’s 50th anniversary/Temple dedication). In a meeting earlier this week we were discussing a potential future event and whether it was going to be “too much”. Then one of the meeting attendees said something along the lines of “if we could do the 50th, we can do anything!”

And it’s true that we stretched way out of our comfort zones and established what we’ve been referring to as “a new normal”, which has higher standards and a much higher set point than what we were accustomed to B.T.F. (Before The Fiftieth). 🙂

So, yeah. If we could achieve the 50th, we can do anything…IF we keep reminding ourselves about what we accomplished. Which is a pretty big if because it’s easy to forget. To slip back into old, comfortable ways of doing, thinking, being.

It reminds me of a long ago life experience that also changed my set point: (literally) walking on fire! I won’t go into all the boring details, but I walked on something like twenty feet worth of hot coals. It was so amazing that I snuck to the back of the line and did it a second time!

Later a part of me tried to downplay it: “maybe the coals weren’t that hot” kind of thoughts. But I knew better…

During a trip to the beach when I was in high school, someone put out a campfire by covering it with sand, and I had the misfortune of stepping on it. To this day I remember thinking that I finally understood the phrase “walking into a nest of hornets” because it hurt so bad.

On the drive home I had to sit with my foot in an ice chest, followed by a visit to the hospital to treat the blistering, which took about a week to heal. And that was the result of one second’s worth of one foot coming into contact with hot coals.

But here’s the point. There have been plenty of times in the ensuing decades when I have felt fearful and powerless and limited. And what I wish is that I had made a concerted effort to remember — every single day — that I broke through my fears and accomplished something seemingly impossible.

And that’s what I hope we’ll do with our 50th anniversary experience: just remember!

Posted on

The new normal

The cool thing about tomorrow’s Sunday service is….it’s just a regular Sunday service! Well, except that it’s in the Temple of Light. 😉

Last Sunday we ended the amazing 50th anniversary week with our first Sunday service in the new Temple. This Sunday is another first: our first plain old regular service there!

It’s going to take a little while to acclimate ourselves, but the fact is that our “new normal” just happens to include the Temple of Light.

How cool is that?!?