Five Things The Pandemic Taught Me

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This blog post talks about things learned from my personal perspective during the pandemic. In this blog post I discuss things like food, lessons learned, vulnerability and deciding on how experiences can allow you to grow, flourish and learning to grow fully into yourself.

Five Things The Pandemic Taught Me

I am a fully VACCINATED HUMAN, and as someone who can now interact with people who are also vaccinated; it got me thinking about the things I was expecting and things I was not expecting.

Freedom from the pandemmy had me in my introspection space and speaking with friends and family face to face had us talking about the realities about the pandemic………

What I learned was that everyone’s experience was different, but some similarities spilled out for us all, and I want to share what I learned about myself during this global MESS.

1. Learning My Food Prep Preferences

I learned that I prefer my home cooked meals to ordering takeout.

This surprised me.

Prior to the pandemic, I did not really eat out a ton and I really did not think twice about it, as the options are mostly always healthier and cheaper when you cook at home; the pandemic revealed something to me that I had not thought of before……

Let me preface, because I actually live in a really amazing foodie community and everything you eat here if it is local, is pretty amazing and everything is mid-range in price, so it’s delicious and affordable and you always get a really lovely dine-in experience.

That being said, I have to say that ordering UBER EATS once or twice a week in the first few months of the pandemic, had me BURNT out.

Ordering out was something we were encouraged to do to support local businesses and it also helped to save my sanity (not gonna lie), but It was also very odd, because on the one hand, it was really kind of emotionally taxing to plan my meals at times and at other times it was enjoyable to just say, “I don’t have to cook four meals for the week” because LEFTOVERS.

But, on the other hand, the food never tasted as AMAZING as when you sit across from the people you love and care about; talking about the day to day over a cold cocktail and a steaming hot plate of food that has been freshly brought out to the table, and then you eat until you can’t eat anymore and you have to ask for a to-go box because LEFTOVERS………

This new experience (take-out in the new world) was not as satisfying and I learned to pour into my cookbooks more, learned to improvise meals more and become more flexible around food and less rigid……so, eating out is still something that is enjoyable, but takeout, I found less exciting in the end.

Who would have guessed it? Not me.

2. I Learned The Art Of Doing Nothing

The pandemic allowed me to do NOTHING for the longest period of time in my life.

For a time, I did NOTHING.

Initially the shock of doing nothing creeped me out a bit because my entire life I have always been doing something.

I was raised to be thoughtful and productive.

Growing up, our summers were always filled with structure, downtime and education.

We had morning homeschool during summer vacations; I did sports camps, bible camps, read books, wrote book reports and science experiments were encouraged……..

Even if we were on summer vacation, we took field trips and our parents let us go wild after the structured part of the day was over (we actually had a lot of fun during our summers).

When you have been brought up with a structured life, you also find it difficult to do nothing, because people who have structured lives want to be responsible citizens who contribute, and I had always worked since I was like ten (babysitting, working in high school (to buy my own extras that I wanted, not needed).

I have always been working, learning or both.

This was the first time in my life where I just did nothing and it was oddly therapeutic after the initial shock wore off.  

Scary? Yes.

Therapeutic? Also, yes.

3. I Learned To Listen To My Needs First

How much of our lives are spent serving other people’s agenda’s and making sure other people’s needs are met before our own?

It is understandable that parents cannot always relate to this, because your kids’ needs must come before your own; but I don’t have kids (yet) and this time allowed me to deeply get to know myself and the parts of myself that remained present, but were somehow being neglected because life happens, and sometimes you lose important parts of yourself by trying to be things for other people.

Learning to listen to my needs was a long process and did not happen just because of the pandemic, but it was the final stages of clearing some stuff that I had been dealing with for a few years.

Which, heck yes.

We love healing.

4. Learning My Triggers

I learned to be more compassionate towards myself and others.

During my late twenties I went through some things that left me feeling very angry and judgmental.

Realizing my anger and judgement was a reactive coping mechanism I had implemented towards understanding my own boundaries, was a light bulb moment for me.

I used to think (and sometimes I still do) that if I told people what I saw that they were doing (dissecting their motives), it would let them know that I knew they could NOT pull one over on me.

It started slowly (with me speaking up toward behavior I deemed an issue) and it started to pour out like gasoline (it was not cute).

This was not a behavior that I liked in myself and also this behavior didn’t feel like it belonged to me……. it didn’t feel like it was a real part of who I actually was.

Starting to differentiate a trigger and a reaction vs who I actually was, was crucial.

I started to understand that my triggers were being lit up and I was reacting instead of understanding.

It is still a process, but I have learned a lot about what is mine and what is the other person’s.

This allowed me to became more vulnerable with myself and more forgiving with myself and with others.

A few years ago, vulnerability was not something I could fathom……. because being vulnerable had gotten me in a pretty awful situation (this is that part where I state that I recognized my responsibility in putting myself in a bad situation), and so I viewed vulnerability as a weakness; not understanding that my vulnerability and the true essence of who I am was my strength, and the very thing that a certain situation was trying to take out of me.

I did not let that situation win.

(Please Note: Vulnerability is to be used in safe spaces or within the context that an individual feels free and safe to share…….Vulnerability is a beautiful thing if it’s being used healthfully. It is not a beautiful thing if it is being used to manipulate, control or coerce another individual. )

For example: My writing this blog post helps me feel free and empowered with my life and my choices and my vulnerability and I feel safe in sharing these aspects on this platform.

5. I Became Selective With My Company

I became more selective with whom I was keeping company with (which is hard to do when you are already really selective, but it can be done).

I think it goes without saying that we change everyday and we learn about ourselves and the pandemic showed us a lot about what no longer resonated with us in our lives.  

It has also been said that you become like the five people you surround yourself with the most, so I started to select my company more wisely.

Questions I ask myself, that have helped me when associating with people……..

-How do I feel around this person?

-Am I allowed to be myself, or are they secretly rolling their eyes at me when they think I am not looking?

-How do they speak about themselves?

-How do they speak about others?

-Are they a safe person?

-What are their goals and aspirations?

-How do I make them feel when they are around me?

-Am I being good listener and visa versa?

Knowing that neither of us will get it perfectly down, but it’s a safe relationship/friendship to be in.

Conclusion

Thus concludes the five things I have learned during the pandemic.

That being said, I have found it helpful to realize that at this time, we are all trying to do our best as we re-enter the world after covid, and that we may experience a range of emotions throughout this time and those emotions/feelings are valid and if you do experience them, that you allow yourself to sit with them.

Sitting with our emotions helps us get in tune with ourselves.

Emotions are messy and most often do not make sense, but instead of avoiding them I hope you embrace them, and find a safe space for yourself to unpack all that this year and last year has brought to us all.

I hope this blog post helps other people who may be weirded out as we re-enter the world after this very strange time.

What has the pandemic taught you?

Let me know in the comments.

As always,

Talk to you soon.

-Nikita