Sylvia's Journal

I am reading more and more about the millions of viruses out there that have not been catalogued and for which we are wholly unprepared, like this one. Of course, we can never be totally prepared as these viruses are known to shape-shift in response to our own shape-shifting context. The new normal will also be shape-shifting. And thus, I am extending the tunnel that we are currently in, further and further.

The light at the end of the tunnel that I saw early March, is slowly receding. The prediction that we are still far from normalizing life again is now closer to being fact rather than fiction (or opinion). The whole summer? Next fall? Next year? There are moments when I can only see darkness rather than light at the end of the tunnel.  

The light that used to be at the end of the tunnel will have to come from within. Not from outside to inside, as our president suggests, but from inside to outside.

How we show up in our lives has always been important, but now I think it is even more so. People have recently evoked many times the oxygen mask routine in planes (put it on yourself before you put it on your child). It is an apt comparison. If we can’t be grounded and lit up ourselves, how can we ground and light up others?

I am also benefitting from the light that others emit, both close by and faraway. I have joined two networks that were outside my geographic sphere, a vertical slice of the world that extends from the tip of Africa to the north of Europe, with some outliers in South America and Australia. They are all team coaches, some aspiring team coaches like me, and they are all full of light.

Last week I also joined an Indian network of people who consider themselves talent developers. I am signing up left and right to such networks as they keep me connected to the rest of the world, and I find inside these networks individuals who are not only like-minded but also light-minded.

It helps that, at least in the northern hemisphere, that we are also heading into more light of day and less and less darkness.