I am OK with Today

As I entered the second week of my stay-at-home guidelines, I made this “Wheel of Covid” because I found myself being so hard on myself for not being more productive, more creative, more spiritual, more, more, more of whatever. The amount of guilt that was rising to the surface was the culmination of years in intense corporate positions followed by running my own business, where its success or failure resides solely on my shoulders. I was diving, no, drowning in educational videos, consuming massive amounts of information in hopes of regaining some control over the person that I once was. I had hoped that I would emerge wiser, but what I was actually seeing was that I wasn’t emerging at all—emotionally, I was becoming more frail, vulnerable (and not the good kind), defensive, angry, and disappointed with myself. I couldn’t keep a program. I couldn’t finish a book. My monkey mind scattered out of control. I made the Covid-Wheel to trick my mind into thinking that it was ok to watch Netflix and enjoy 7 seasons of something in a massive binge because that’s what I needed. I needed to mentally be OK with how I was feeling for the day. Maybe what my mind-body needed some days was a total immersion in my practices: QiGong, Kundalini, Meditation, Prayer, and Hoōponopono. On other days, I had the need to organize or clean and yet on other days, I needed to step back from the news completely and watch comedy specials with humor to lift my spirits. As the days went on and I kept using the Wheel of Covid, I noticed that my creativity was coming back and a sense of balance was returning. I realized that I needed to be OK with doing nothing and once I became OK with doing nothing at all, my mind started to settle in for the long haul.

“Beware the barrenness of a busy Life”

— Socrates

Sure enough when my mind settled in and I accepted my feelings of the day, creativity came back to greet me. As it turns out creativity’s wellspring is when our minds are present, calm, relaxed free from judgement, free from deep in the subconscious mind of not feeling worthy enough. Sometimes we have to trick the mind, use the biology and mechanics of how the brain works to achieve a higher state of acceptance of self. When we can accept ourselves, accept the situation for what it is, accept the grief we actually end up liberating the mind from this endless loop of judgment. Try the Wheel of Covid. Customize it to your own personality traits. Make each section equal because they all have equal importance in your psyche. Let me know if it resonates with you. If you find some comfort in the activity. If my wheel works for you great! print it out and get started. Remember if you don’t like where you spin landed - you are a single player in the Wheel of Covid and can do as many do-overs that you want until the wheel lands on what you truly want to do for the day. You will know - remember to reward yourself to activate your reward system.