In what feels like almost overnight, all of our lives have been changed from the Coronavirus. The first time we heard about it, I think most of us shrugged it off.  Most of us continued on with our daily routine and living our lives as per usual until we just couldn’t anymore. The conversations at work and with people around us started to navigate towards a feeling that maybe this wasn’t something to be ignored and that maybe this was something that we really needed to be prepared for. Within a week or two the news and social media initiated a panic based consciousness and while some of us went out to shop for our normal weekly groceries without a care or worry, we saw others stocking up for what seemed like the apocalypse and so then we too out of pure human instinct decided that we should also, because fear is a fierce motivator.

And so here we are a few weeks later with stocked up pantries and a refrigerator filled with food, home from work and school basically confined to our homes except for essential travel and shopping.  Those of us that are adhering to social distancing and staying in to stop the spread or that have been laid off or given the chance to work completely from home and so on are getting a great opportunity for self-reflection and life re-evaluation right now. While this may not be the first thing on people’s minds during this time, it is in fact a time for all of us to go within and to use this situation as a means towards growth and transformation.

As we sit in quarantine and have more time than we ever have, this is the chance and opportunity for all of us to reevaluate our lives, our choices and our routines.  Our lives have been financially, socially, emotionally and spiritually disrupted and perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe this is the wake up call that many needed to get re-focused and get out of autopilot mode.  Maybe this is what many needed in order to make changes to a lifestyle that seemed as though it was working but only because there wasn’t any other choice.  Maybe, just maybe this is the pivoting point that we all needed.

Let’s start with family and loved ones and how this is shifting the value of relationships. Perhaps we were taking for granted the time spent with our older generation family members before and were too busy to visit or take them out. Now that we aren’t able to see them and are forced to stay away, it inadvertently creates an urge in all of us to want to make the time to see them more. Sometimes things have to be taken away from us unwillingly in order to really see their value. Maybe this will force us all to  start to have more appreciation for the time we spend with friends and loved ones and instead of saying “let’s get together soon” we actually make and set the date to do it so we ensure that it actually happens. Don’t you miss your friends and family more than you ever have right now?  Maybe this ignites family dinners and board games within families again. Maybe it reconnects friendships that went to the wayside due to being caught up in ife. Maybe the phones are put down and parents get to learn more about who their children are becoming, couples get to talk about what is on their mind and connect more deeply than before. This slow down, this halt on the breaks of life is a gift if we view it as one. It is a chance to reconnect with our inner home and the family within it and to value our friends and family even more than we did before. Facetime is a wonderful thing, but nothing fills our hearts more than hugs and in person get togethers. This is a reminder that technology is a fantastic thing, but it will never replace human touch and connection.

Next up, who are we are we  becoming throughout all of this? Here is a moment in time where we can all gain clarity about who we have become, who we want to be and what it is that we really want to achieve. In the silence, there is much to be discovered and there is plenty of silence right now. Now is the time to look at everything from finances to goals to deep desires that haven’t been tended to. For example, is this the job you really want to do for another fifteen to thirty years? If you got laid off, is this forcing you into another setting that may suit you better? Is there a creative project that you want to start? Is there a business venture you have been putting off? It is also a time to go within and learn to meditate or increase your meditation practice and  to move your body more. This is a time to start journaling, to start with reading personal development, creating a vision for your life and what you want it to look like. Not all chaos is bad and sometimes it propels us forcibly into change that we otherwise wouldn’t have chosen because we wanted to stay comfortable – even if that comfortability brought unhappiness. So, are you happy? If not, what can you do to change it? Sit with this daily. Use this time away from the rat race to slow down and get clear. Clarity can only be found with deep focus and now is that time, the world has slowed down and it is time to slow down with it.

Lastly, the dreaded finances topic and the impact this has had on many lives at this time. All of a sudden thousands and thousands of people have lost their income. Income and money is necessary and money does matter no matter what anyone says. While money can’t “buy you happiness” it does buy you peace of mind and that can’t be ignored. The typical  American life feels like a race and groundhog day. Get up, rush to get out of the house, commute to work, work all day, come home, eat, watch TV, scroll social media and go to bed only to do it all again the next day. The weekends are about over committing to things that one wishes they could skip all together and doing chores that couldn’t get done during the week.  Obviously kids thrown into this mix makes the days even more tedious and repetitive and so life becomes just one big loop of “to-do” lists scrambled together in this thing that we now call life. Time seems to pass all too quickly and before we know it, it is Christmas time and we ask ourselves and others “where has the time gone?!” with such confusion.  Chances are the autopilot life has left most Americans with a feeling of hopelessness, stress and unease because we have gotten so far away from what our inner being really wants to do and what life is really supposed to be all about.

Sadly, most Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have minimal to no savings. While this has gotten worse due to inflation and the devaluation of the American dollar as a whole, it has also gotten worse because most  Americans have been duped into a consciousness of consumerism and programmed to buy, buy, buy with money they don’t have.   From new cars, brand name clothes, furniture, homes and mortgages that are unaffordable yet still purchased, to basically any way to spend money that isn’t physically there,  most Americans are living under a ball of debt and financing.  So now, when crisis hits and the money isn’t coming in and the bills are mounting stress is initiated which didn’t have to be there to begin with. So, let this be an opportunity for the consciousness to change from a consumerism mindset to one of minimalism. I am not talking living a minimalist life to the point of not having or buying anything nice or not doing anything nice, but rather not spending money that isn’t there and becoming more focused on experiences rather than THINGS. When we go to our grave, none of it will be taken with us and no one will talk about the clothes we wore,  house or the  brand new cars we had. All of those materialistic things can be gone in an instant yet experiences are lifelong memories. As a society if we give less value to material objects and instead start to focus more  on family and close friends, personal growth and health and wellness, creating experiences and memories and investing in things that we can pay cash for and not leverage,  then when the economy tanks there won’t be panic because money will be there to hold us all over, peace of mind will prevail and panic will not ensue. Fear, scarcity and stress are a contagious virus themselves  and our kids feel it, marriages are affected by it and health suffers from it, so let this be a time to  reconsider how we live our lives and spend our money since finances are the foundation of all of our lives.

This is a time of change and it can be change for the better or it can be change for the worse. We can come out of this a society with a new consciousness geared towards a greater appreciation for fresh air, mother earth and our health, connecting more and valuing time with friends and family, reigniting passion with our spouses and uniting parent/ children bonds, changing our entire self image in order to change the course of our lives, and shifting our perception of money and consumerism so that we prevail and ascend as we are meant to at this time. LIfe is all about perception and how we choose to view this chaos and uncertainty will be  the difference between growth or regression. So, I hope that in this time of extreme change and disruption, that it is used as a time for reflection and transformation and that we all come out stronger with greater values that have been lost along the way of life. This is our chance to make changes that rewire the world and its consciousness.

This is our chance to shift.