It seems that our society doesn’t like to talk about death and grief - we prefer to avoid it, imagining that we can be young and healthy forever. What is the result of this avoiding? What is the cost? With the Great Unravelling on our doorstep in the form of COVID-19, political instability and climate change, can we afford to turn a blind eye to death any longer?

2020 has been one wild rollercoaster, and I think it’s safe to say that very few of us are unscathed - and hey, we’re only 2/3 of the way through.

I don’t know about you, but… it’s getting harder to focus. I set goals, but then I don’t really feel like achieving them. I get distracted easily, sinking time into scrolling through my news feeds instead of sticking to what I’d planned to do. I’ve allowed myself far more junk food than I normally would, because I’m not able to relax with friends in the ways I’d normally like to. Many people have told me that they’re feeling the same.

As part of my training as a Work That Reconnects facilitator, I was asked whether I had ever undertaken any anti-colonialist or anti-racist work.

Back then, I had no idea what that really meant - I mumbled something along the lines of “well, um, I have a lot of non-white friends and I hate racists”.

I used to bristle a little at the term “white privilege” - it felt to me as if I was being accused of benefitting unfairly purely because of the colour of my skin. I felt that I was being told that I didn’t deserve any of the qualifications, possessions or respect that I had because it had been afforded to be purely by virtue of being born with white skin.

You know that feeling in your gut that tells you something is wrong?⁣ ⁣ What if, instead of trying to numb it and ignore it, you were to listen to it?

What if you invite that emotion in and ask "what are you trying to tell me?"⁣ ⁣

So many people think they are broken because they can't stop feeling the pain and anxiety of the world. ⁣ ⁣

You are not broken, my dear. You are sensitive. And that's not a bad thing, despite the many ways you may have been told over the years that you're "too sensitive".⁣ ⁣

I have to be honest; when this lockdown started and I envisioned anything from a couple of weeks to a few months of being stuck indoors, I had big visions. I wasn’t the only one. After I posted that article, my news feed was hit will what felt that thousands of articles suggesting that people use their time at home productively, take on a new skill, start a new side-hustle, etc etc. One particularly striking meme that hit me one morning - I can’t seem to find it now - pointing out that Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Isaac Newton discovered calculus while they were at home during the plague. The suggestion was - what have you done, loser?

The problem with “Business as Usual” and coaches who promise you six figures… is it really sustainable to promote a model of infinite growth on a finite planet?

I’m drowning right now in people saying “when things get back to normal after the Corona virus”, as if a global pandemic that has seen stockmarkets plunge and unemployment benefit claims skyrocket beyond anything we’ve seen in our lives, the jobs that have been lost, the industries irrevocably changed - is just a minor hiccup on the road of ‘Business as Usual’.

What’s wrong with “Business as Usual”? Well, to put things simply, it is completely illogical, short-sighted, and destructive to life…