As I listen to people, I cannot help but hear just how tired so many of us are.
This isn’t entirely surprising given we are still emerging from a long term pandemic, the impact of which may only be hitting us now that the hardest part has passed. We hope.
But, there is a collective fatigue.
For, whether we got off lightly or lost much, the time has come to start living again, whatever that may look like for you.
And I am encouraged to add that alongside the collective exhaustion is a growing confidence in returning to fun activities that have been denied for too long, or in finally booking those longed for holidays.
Fun is calling again.
There is growing awareness of conditions such as post traumatic stress and the disorder it can lead to, but not so much about post traumatic growth and the new life it can evoke, this despite the growing number of real life story’s that testify to exactly this. Yet post traumatic and post pandemic growth and life exist and call us all.
Covid and indeed ordinary life bring much loss, grief and sorrow.
And yet, ongoing new life remains beyond it all.
As nature reflects the rest and nourishment required to reproduce new life, so too can we nourish ourselves in to readiness for the life that lay ahead.
Fun can provide a big part of this nourishment.
This does not deny the losses experienced thus far but neither does it deny the new life just up ahead. Both are real and true and it is our challenge to grieve for one, prepare for the other and hold both in tandem.
New life is calling.
And the return to fun activities is an important part of our individual and collective healing, ongoing growth and life beyond it all.