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Eat Out - To Help Out - The Importance of Reflection.

Updated: Jul 16



Four years ago we were just about making our way back out into the world. For some it was a tentative stepping out, for others they were ready to run, by August 2020 we were being encouraged to Eat Out, To Help Out and we were back in the world with little or no conversation about what we had all experienced at a deeper level.



Even before it happened and restrictions were removed I was writing about and having conversations on how important and indeed essential it was for us to take time to reflect on what had happened , what we had experienced, what we wanted to take with us, what we most certainly wanted to leave behind etc etc


Some people spent time reflecting, processing and healing, some made significant changes in their lives, others vowed never to go back to how things were before, and quickly found themselves running around with an even busier schedule than before.


On many levels the true impact of those months/years is only being felt now. I am still not sure if as individuals or as a collective we will ever truly understand just how much we changed.

2020 will most certainly go down in the Social History books as a very significant time, 2020 vision will never mean the same again.


I have for sometime followed the work of Fr Jim Cogley, the words he shared in his daily Social Media updates this week resonated deeply and I felt it would be good to share them here. He has very eloquently summarised my thoughts both in relation to why we find ourselves where we are, the collective covid experience and also what I have experienced on retreats many times ( I will link my Retreat Blog to this one)


"Covid – Eruptions

It seems to be a common belief that Covid has affected us, and continues to affect us, in so many ways that we still don’t fully understand. We hear remarks along such lines as ‘people seem more anxious and restless’, ‘Society in general hasn’t yet settled,’ People have become more isolated and fearful of each other,’ ‘having had a taste of freedom no one wants to work long hours anymore.’


Just to give a context to our collective experience a lady went on a three-month Buddhist meditation retreat and three years later was still recovering! This was not a judgment on the retreat but a tribute to its efficacy. Having taken time out for quiet and reflection, so much unconscious material began to surface that for some time she felt overwhelmed and needed quite a lot of guidance in order to integrate so much painful emotion and memories of a troubled childhood that she had repressed for all of her earlier life.


Having experienced nearly two years of enforced contemplation where there was no place to run to, and very few distractions, is it any wonder that lifetimes of emotional repressed material will have surfaced and still be seeking integration."


Fr Jim is a Psychotherapist and a wood turner below is another reflection he shared this week. I recommend checking out his facebook page - Our Lady's Island and his books available through https://www.jimcogley.com/



"Covid - Lockdown

The vase shown was made during lockdown, as a symbol of what I perceived to be happened during that time. Lockdown was happening in most lives long before Covid. Painful emotions and memories were being locked in the cellars that in psychological terms we call the unconscious. A lid was firmly put in place, and so we lived more in out heads then our hearts. The common belief was, ‘out of sight out of mind, and leave the past where it belongs, in the past’. Yet emotional issues never belong to the past but are very much alive in the present. They, as in the vase, often appeared like fault lines that held together until subjected to some extra pressure. So it has been the experience of so many that long repressed emotions were bursting to come out and initially expressed themselves as irritability and anger. For others the sudden change brought upon us by Covid awakened times when painful changes were forced upon us. For many being confined together for so long replicated our childhood and perhaps feeling trapped in family dynamics that were far from pleasant. Once the sleeping giant of the unconscious is awakened it will not go back to sleep until its contents are acknowledged and integrated. Is it any wonder that society in general is still suffering to a large extent from a form of Long-Covid! "



Whilst reading the words above may be difficult I share them in the hope that if it resonates, you will know it isn't just you, we are all feeling it perhaps in different ways or to different levels. I am seeing it in many of my clients and they are working through what was activated in them and feeling the benefits of doing so.


If you need support please get in touch. Healing can and does happen.


Gra agus Solas


Love and light


Joanne

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