Emerging

Emerging is a process.

For many weeks now, I have been pondering how I will emerge from this extended period of personal isolation.

I have written previously about my contentment during the period of forced isolation and how I have welcomed the time to reflect, heal and consider my own life and how I can make positive changes in the way I live, the way I am.

If the world and all life on earth is going to thrive and survive, then we as human beings need to change because it is us who are destroying this beautiful planet.

Emergence for me is about that — change. I don’t want to ‘go back to normal’. There is no normal. I want to be the change that can help the world. I want to help create a ‘new normal’ — for my own wellbeing, for my immediate community, society and for the world.

I want to be able to see and feel that I have lived through the past seven months and grown and developed as a person. I want to emerge with compassion and love in my heart, with an energetic and joyful body and with a peaceful, calm and alert mind. I want these things not for myself in a selfish way, but because I believe if I can have wellbeing, then I can better serve my community, I can be a kinder person to myself and I will be able to reach out to others with empathy and love. My relationships will be rich and rewarding and I will find peace, joy and fulfilment.

We all make choices, almost every moment of every day, some small, some significant. Even if we do things automatically, at some level we are making choices. The change in us begins to happen when we become aware of our choices, when we become self aware and conscious.

When I consider my own wellbeing, I can recognise that many of my choices in the past, I made when I had very little self awareness. Many of my choices were not beneficial. Now, with full awareness, I can make lifestyle choices that aid my wellbeing rather than hinder.

I have spent much of my time during lockdown focussing on my own personal healing.  The word healing comes from wholeness. To be healed, is to be whole. Healing comes from within and I have been concentrating on self care, making the best choices I can to ensure I maintain homeostasis – an equilibrium in my body, mind and spirit. I have recognised that healing comes from within. With self awareness and consciousness I can heal myself, I can renew my body, mind and spirit and emerge as a new me willing to re-engage with the world in a new way.

So, what’s in store for me and what’s all this got to do with writing?

I have developed a creative life, an artist’s life, a spiritual life and a willingness to take what I have learned, what I have discovered, out into the wider world with the hope of helping others. I have plans and ideas of how I can do this. All I need now is the continued belief and faith in myself, the daily rituals I have established and the trust that I can fulfil my dreams.

As for my writing, I am pleased to have established a writing routine and to have a growing body of work, a store of stories and ideas for stories which will sustain me for years to come. I am grateful to my writing community — my writing friends with whom I have shared work and given and received feedback, Norwich Forum Writers, my writing group and the many tutors and mentors I have engaged with for their continued help and support.

As I emerge from lockdown and my time of self isolation, I hope I can do so with a lightness of being, replacing all fear with love and the sustained awareness to look after my wellbeing and to keep writing.

LIHazleton.
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