Two Quarters in Quarantine: What I've Learned
Two quarters in quarantine.
It feels surreal to write those words. And yet the realist in me knows that there are many more quarters to go.
So I'm going to do what I always do at the end of a quarter and take a moment to look back, assess what I’ve learned, decide what I want to carry forward, and step into the next quarter with purpose and intention.
(If you want to take a look at my Q1 reflections, you can find them here.)
Here are some of the important things I’ve learned in my second quarter of quarantine.
Change it up.
With the environment so static, and with each day bleeding into the next, I have found that the routines I had previously depended on aren't serving me in the same way anymore. In the pre-Covid world and even in the early days of Covid, my morning routine provided a structure I could rely on since the rest of my day was so unpredictable. I’m now in a place where I'm actually needing something less expected, something surprising, something fresh. In Q3, I intend to change it up so that I can find a bit more newness and wonder in days that might otherwise feel quite repetitive.
Stay in the moment.
This is, of course, a major lesson from actor training that can be applied to “real life”. Staying in the moment means acknowledging the given circumstances and moving, truthfully, through them. As my given circumstances are changing, my needs are changing too. My wants are changing, my desires are changing, my priorities are changing. It would be easier to pretend that what I needed yesterday is what I still need today. But that is not staying in the moment. Instead, I intend to ask myself the hard questions: “Based on what life is like right now, what do you need? What are you striving for? What matters to you?”
Reinvent.
In mid-March, we shut down the brick and mortar studio, and opened registration for the new JWS Online studio only two weeks later. Reinvention 1.0. We are 6 months in, and we are no closer now that we were in March to an end to this ordeal. I have to expect that it is going to be much much longer. With that in mind, it is time to take stock, project a new future based on the stark reality of this moment, and then reinvent again. It would be easier to keep running with what already exists, but if I want to truly be of service to my community, I need to figure out what version 2.0 looks like.
As we enter Q3, let us all resolve to change it up, stay in the moment, and reinvent, so that we can step into the future as the best version of ourselves.