Thank God it’s over

We have read about pandemics, but now we have experienced one.

Much has changed since 25 March 2020, the beginning of our first lockdown.

For instance, our emotional life may feel different.

There are two types of emotions.

There are emotions like love, desire and joy. Think of having a beer with a mate, a cup of coffee with a friend. We love it. We desire it. We enjoy it.

These are called the ‘human’ emotions.

There are ‘useful’ emotions. Think of entering a mortgage to pay off the home. You need courage and hope.

During times of trauma and isolation – COVID Pandemic – it is usual for our emotional lives to be turned upside down.

The normal balance between the human and useful is upset by the useful emotions being heightened and the human emotions being dulled.

Think of the emotions of fear and despair.

These emotions can take over from the human emotions – love, desire, joy – and cause emotional, and thus spiritual, imbalance within us.

Coming out of lockdown it will be important for us to make a conscious effort to feel love, desire and joy and leave behind the excessive feelings of fear and despair.

Anger, too, might have been mismanaged. We can put it in its place.

Remember – or perhaps re-discover – that our emotions are our deep friends. We should never be frightened by them.

As they say, ‘To feel is to heal.’

Become more self-aware. Recognise that it is highly likely that our useful emotions have overtaken our human emotions. We need simply to put them back in their rightful place and let ourselves experience, once again, the beauty of the emotions of love, desire and joy.

We will find that we feel more balanced. That we have renewed interest and energy in identifying and doing the right thing. That we feel ourselves being drawn closer to others and God – our relationships renewed.