10 Intentions for a Post-COVID America
It’s been a full year since we all changed forever, and our nervous systems are beginning to make meaning of it. We can take a lot from where we’ve been before we charge ahead just yet.
Ultimately, a pandemic has taught us what spiritual teachers have always known:
- we have absolutely no control
- we’re going to die, and
- the only way to minimize suffering is by feeling it first
It isn’t morbid if we leverage this wisdom with how we choose to spend each moment going forward.
And as we enter a new world with hopes of herd immunity and political reprieve; I offer some intentions to take with us. These are by no means comprehensive of all we could/should hold dear, nor are they to bypass the very real reasons why we might not get there. My hope is that we allow ourselves to imagine beyond what’s possible, even if only for this 6-min read.
May we have the courage to consider:
- we are dismantling injustice everyday
Our behavior now reflects the tectonic shifts that happened in 2020. We don’t question whether racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia/ableism exist, we work towards dismantling them everyday. We see this working because our pop and media culture is as colorful as it is educational, our language has completely transformed inclusively, and we are all a little more free to be ourselves in ways we never knew possible.
We defund the police.
We turn to the ancestors (of this earth or otherwise) who have gotten us here, and we invest time and money to amplify their guidance. We have built this into our schedules, our business models, and our communities. We sacrifice and leverage our privileges like money, food, shelter & more for the good of the collective; and we have fun while we do it.
2. We are putting community first
We are making phone calls. We are stopping by to say hello. We are sending care packages. We are asking deep questions about hard things. We are saying thank you and meaning it.
We are leveraging our relationships together to build collective power, because we understand going it alone is killing us. We know that our sum is so much bigger than our parts, and we are exploring new ways of what that looks like in practice.
We know that dismantling injustice starts right here in these intimate spaces, and we courageously explore that together. We are sitting with the discomfort of being held accountable when we get it wrong, and we are collectively healing as a result.
3. we are honoring women
We are repairing the harm of the enormous disparity of (mostly BIPOC) women who lost work in 2020, and prioritizing them in hiring and policy response. We are raising wages for early childhood education, teaching, nursing, & elderly care.
We are legalizing abortion to the fullest extent with unbreakable federal law, because we understand that anything less is a function of white supremacy (among many, many other reasons).
We listen to women, we give them lots of space, and we learn from their wisdom.
We invite all genders into this process.
4. we are listening to our bodies
We understand that they tell us everything we need to know. We eat when we’re hungry, we move everyday, and notice when we are tense and make adjustments. We trust what our bodies are telling us, we thank them for their wisdom, and we never take them for granted. We understand that when we don’t do this, conflict appears.
We make free healthcare priority in our activism because health should not be earned. We amplify, cultivate, and develop new ways for all to have healthy food everyday. We stop caring about how that relates to traditional standards of beauty.
5. we are letting feelings happen
We no longer numb our suffering. We are noticing that it doesn’t stick around as long. We are learning everyday how to be with the hurt, because we know it’s healing. We know that when we choose that, we are giving permission to others to do the same.
6. we know that time is not promised
We already knew this, but now we know it. We understand that we have more than one pandemic plaguing us, and our priorities reflect that.
We have go-bags packed & supplies ready for fires, floods, hurricanes & tornadoes. We are planning our long term responses to these climate realities collectively.
We are saying I love you when we feel it. We are modeling joyful, conscious presence everyday, because tomorrow isn’t promised and it never was.
7. we prioritize joy
We are laughing everyday. We learned that even the most heinous crime can lead to prolific comedy that heals. We know that pain paired with joy is part of the process, and we use that wisdom going forward.
We know that what we pay attention to grows and we know how important that is for ourselves and generations after us.
8. we listen to our inner child
We remembered that we love to bake, sew, dance, color, skate, talk on the phone, ride bikes and so much more. We felt better when we did this… a lot better.
We spent less money. We met new friends (and re-connected with old ones) who like these things, just like when we were kids.
We will keep feeding these parts of us; returning to what we’ve always known, and watch how this brings us closer to ourselves.
9. we go on adventures
We never wait to try new things. If our friend or lover doesn’t want to join us, we go alone. If our job gives us vacation time, we take it. We try the restaurant. We go to the concert. We go on the date. We are not concerned with reasons why we could do these things another day. We say no to invitations that do not feed our soul, and we feel great about that too.
10. We are working less
We are refusing to let any institution tell us an 8-hour workday means anything at all. We are demanding childcare. We are earning a thriving wage, and we are holding folks accountable who refuse to pay it. We are taking mental health days and paid time off; and changing the internal culture of burnout by modeling our own well being. We are showing for our kids that they can work less too.
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What we pay attention to grows, and this is my contribution to feeding a vision for what could be. While it may seem silly to some, to me it feels healing in my body and in my conversations to allow these dreams to surface. What if we all tapped into our intentions like this, got into the details, let it sink into our whole being?
I was deeply inspired by the work of adrienne maree brown for this piece, who leads with love and transformation in all that she does. I hope we’ll all tap into her work as a guide to contribute our own visions for our new world, and we’ll all continue to heal as a result.
