As an extrovert the last month has been extremely hard for me. I get my energy from people and struggle greatly when I don’t get that interaction. As our state took away large events, then smaller, then smaller and finally sent everyone home I started to feel intense anxiety in a way I have never felt before. But you’ve felt it too, haven’t you? You see it all around you? The urge to clean, sort, bake, horde, cook, and sleep?

 

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You are there, you are in the bottom two rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs…

In early March you could easily have been working on meeting your potential, maybe only on meeting those esteem needs of prestige and personal accomplishment. However, as you got sent to work from home, or to not work at all, something started to move. Some of it was the community around you buying all the toilet paper and flour that tipped something in the back of your mind…

Then, people started to die, and not just those over 65. Then hospitals in New York were in crisis, we realized this wasn’t all just a big overreaction. And you moved without knowing it sensing a feeling of wanting to feel part of something you were now cut off from, school, work, church. You feel this and realize everything shifted to being hyper focused on the relationships you care about most, the ones you spend all your time with now, and/or the ones you are deeply afraid to lose. We started wearing masks to the grocery store and looking in judgement on those people so brazen to venture out without one.

Now, we are deep into the last two levels, having cut off our outside contact with others, keeping our safety and basic needs covered has moved to the top of the list. If a stranger came to your door unmasked right now, would you open it?

Finally, that urge to bake, nap, only wear comfy clothes and make sure you eat and maybe have a stiff drink if you have one, you are at the bottom of Maslow, warmth, water and rest.

Welcome to our closest encounter with the end of the world. Where what you care about shifts, in an instant. Who you care about comes into sharp focus, very fast. Let these times be a blessed inventory if you have escaped this disease and remember the moments that made things feel more important. Carry some of those out of this as we put things back together.

Remember, if the country had not been doing so well when we went into this, there would have been massive riots. As it stands, many are suffering, many more are stepping up to help in big ways, and many, many more are coping with boredom. Be thankful for your boredom, your intact windows and your electricity. We are a truly a blessed, strong country, we will get through this together and united. It is a wonderful feeling to see our country come together to take care of one another. I think the media is disappointed, they have lost their best toy, us. Convincing us there is an us and them was their bread and butter, now there is only us.  Thank you Corona for exposing us for the beautiful human beings we are.

Maslow’s Chart.