The price of isolation and how we can get back to being social butterflies
It's so important now more than ever before to remind ourselves, and all generations where society would be without the physical contact and social gathering endorphin that so many people across the world have been starved of for the best part of a year. Panic attacks, depression, insomnia, anxiety or agoraphobia - probably not things that you have previously considered in your life but these have been widely reported during this uncertain time.
Have you experienced strange dreams featuring people and situations from your past which you have not consciously considered recently, all vying for your attention? You wouldn't be alone. Like looking at your life on a timeline, studying each pivotal moment through a microscope and deliberating with the jury of your mind if at that crucial point you took the best path you could have chosen. Decisions which at the time came easily, based only on what you knew then with a helping hand from that instinctual knowledge deep in your gut.
These moments can become almost frozen in time - so easy is it to pause, rewind, and replay in slow motion; picking apart every aspect of that decision or choice. Now is the time to STOP, turn up the volume and brightness and press PLAY!
We owe it to ourselves, each other and the next generations who have had a childhood like we would never imagined possible to take the plunge and get those events and weddings back in the diary. Too much time has been in limbo with life plans on hold, waiting nervously backstage rehearsing lines over and over until the words become blurred and take on whole different meanings. It is easy to indulge these self-reflective moments and look back when in reality they would probably be exactly the same choices we would make.
We have been cocooned for too long, like caterpillars who missed their cue to emerge as beautiful butterflies. Rub your eyes, uncurl that spine and break free from the comfort and warmth of that familiar cocoon - really spread your wings and take flight.