I remember when I bought my first Macbook, I was so excited. I felt like an “official” writer. I loved how sleek and new all the buttons looked, and the saleslady told me, “You will need to buy new attachments for your phone. This computer isn’t designed with a USB port.” Pause. Everything I owned had a USB port! What was Apple thinking?! I said, “If enough people complain, will they change it back?” And she told me something that stayed with me all day, “Once something has changed, it will never go back. They will just continue to redesign from this point.”

I thought about that as I was discussing the coronavirus with my partner. There are far too many people that believe that in two weeks, America will go back to normal. We will all go back to catching our Ubers and Lyfts, sipping our lattes, chatting for our hours in downtown restaurants, attending Broadway shows, traveling to amazing destinations and laughing as we take Instagram pics,  hanging out in bars sipping bourbon and listening to cool 90’s music playing in the background over a speaker.

Those days are over.

America, as we knew it, has changed.  And similar to the USB port on my Macbook, it is not coming back. What emerges after we face and deal with the aftermath of the coronavirus will be what we as a society create. We can point at moments throughout history where our nation has shifted, incidents that have defined our country. This is one of those moments. A moment that will be carved into history. A moment so significant, I believe we will define things as pre-coronavirus and post-coronavirus.

Many things will emerge from this moment in time, but one thing that has emerged is that coronavirus has quieted this nation. The hustle and bustle we were so accustomed to and swore we needed is over. What remains is stillness. In stillness, if we allow it, we face ourselves. We face the truth of who we are. We face the tough questions that linger in our spirit that the busyness of life allowed us to avoid.

This time of stillness can be a way for you to emerge from this moment better on the other side.

This is a moment where we need to pause, to take this moment in. I know many people want us to continue going on as if nothing has changed, but this is a moment to take some time to reflect. You will feel a range of emotions during this time, and truthfully, they are all valid. We have never been in this space, and you begin to emerge, you must face and shed the old to become new.

During this time, I challenge you to take the time to see yourself and ask yourself some questions. While I have been home, these are some of the questions that starting coming to the surface for me:

1. Is the life I have been living the life that I genuinely want to live?
2. Are the people I am giving my energy, time, and love to worth it?
3. Why didn’t you pause and take the time to read that book, watch that show, enjoy your life?
4. What was so important in your life that you put your life on the back burner?
5. Is this relationship one that I want to spend giving my energy?
6. Is my job a place of employment that cares about me and my well-being?
7. Why didn’t I start that business, write the book, do the workshop?
8. What held me back from pursuing my dreams?
9. What stopped me from becoming everything that I wanted to be?
10. What did I dedicate my time to that was a waste of time?
11. What have I been putting off that I can spend this time doing?
12. Am I taking this time to rest, recover, restore, or am I finding ways to be busy to avoid myself?
13. How will I emerge from this renewed?

As these questions came to mind, I must be honest and say, I do not like many of the answers. They do not feel good. Facing myself never feels good. But if I want to come out of this better on the other side, I know it is something that I must do. Please know as you answer these questions, you may not like the answers. But change dwells in the realm of the uncomfortable.

You will get through this just know you have the power to decide today how you will rise!

Featured Photo by  Mysticsartdesign / 1026 images  @ pixabay.com