In recent weeks I’ve expanded my experience of daytime TV and recently I saw an advert for the Red Cross which particularly struck me.

It was voiced by Julie Walters asking something like.... “In years to come we will ask ourselves ‘what did you do during the coronavirus crisis’?”

The answer -  “We adapted.  We created. We cared. We stood together”.

Of course, we will all have done that and more.

We stayed at home as well.
We experienced things we never thought we would. 
We reached anxiety levels we never imagined. 
We got ill and recovered. 
We experienced the death of friends, neighbours, colleagues, family.

And more, of course.

As I thought more and more about what we did....what I did, I reflected that some of the time I spent was simply waiting for the storm to pass.

Some of the time, I found “things to do” to fill the time.

And some of the time, I used for reflection on where I am in life right now, and what I really want to be doing – what I really want to get back into.  And what it’s time for me to leave.

So when the “new normal” arrives and we each re-enter the world step by step, there’s one thing we can be certain of.

Things will never be the same again.

There are too many experiences.  Too much grief and trauma.  Too many thoughts and feelings for my life, and your life, to be ever the same again.

And all of that process will be in therapy rooms, online, in emails, on phones, video calls etc.

In order to be with others as they work through their processes, we must work through our own.  We don’t need to be completely sorted obviously (which of us is ever that?!).  But we do need to have worked through issues to the level where we can sit with another without bringing our own stuff into the room.

And just like the process of coming out of lockdown, that needs to be taken slowly, step by step.  At a pace that is right for each of us individually.

We owe it to ourselves, to each other, to those around us, and to our clients.

However we do it, and whatever we do, we absolutely need to ensure it is part of our own  “new normal.”