After 2 months of staying safe for ourselves and our community, I am aware of new ways of being emerging for many of us. I have spent a portion of each day talking to many people I have known over the years as clients, business colleagues, friends and acquaintances. In depth discussions about how this will roll out, what it means to society short and long term and what is most significant to our lives. It is a profound exercise when you are used to finding solutions easily to find yourself creating a plan when you don’t know what you are planning for. Traversing a 100-year pandemic as a global community has been revealing, jarring and sacred. I have had a number of new experiences of self as life slows. But as the mad busyness that absorbs so much of life, for so many, has fallen into the quiet, I have had many recognitions of how I would like my life to be. A deep change is afoot. I know that is true for you too.
I have received a stream of calls from people, exploring recreating their lives away from the heavily populated areas where they now live. Their sheltering has awakened something in them. They are recognizing that their successful businesses and lives, the constant push, have taken too much of their precious life force and that their lives are going by quickly. They want that to change. They want lives that maintain the together time they have been experiencing with their families. They want time for the beauty life offers. The forced slowness has cracked them open.
Some want to downsize and escape maintaining what they worked so hard to build. They want to live with less. Others want to combine familial resources to create multi-generational family homes. They want togetherness. For many their work has eaten them up for years and family members have passed like ships in the night. They are saying “No more.” The damage and disruption of Covid-19 to communities, families, lives and economies, has created a desire for a more heart-felt gratifying life for many. They are wide awake in the quiet and depths of full-blown uncertainty.
Their need to fill the stillness with distractions is morphing instead to encompass the space they hold. They are receiving the rising of their core creativity and are informed by their own presence. They are closing the door on the constant information overload, the constant distractions and demands of technology.
Many, myself included, are considering how to remake our lives as we emerge into the world once the restrictions are lifted. We don’t want to fully go back to what it looked like before as we have discovered better ways. We want more magic. We want to serve our clients, our families, communities and friends at a higher level where we are also serving ourselves. We feel this is a huge opportunity and that maybe, all of the bloated systems that are broken and that produce mediocre results we currently deem acceptable, can be recreated to produce deeper integrative experiences and learning, wholeness, and value, that uplift us to thrive on all levels. It will take new thinking, intelligence, free-flowing creativity, courage, organization, resolve and love. It will take changing minds and hearts. I am committed to this.
It will take a lot to regrow our communities. It will take time. Strong minds, open hearts and new solutions are needed for the people, families, businesses and organizations that have been detrimentally impacted. All of our recent Zoom meetings have given us a window, literally, into the ease of collaboration available to us. I am always available for discussions, brainstorming, discovering solutions, and unearthing resources that may be valuable and helpful. Please join me in attending my monthly LocalsGuide Zoom webinar presentations. I will be sharing up-to-date market insights and analysis based on my more than 26 years of experience in the industry. Reach out and if we have not met, please introduce yourself and let’s explore what we can create.
Patie Millen
541-301-3435
