While it’s certainly true that no two pandemics are alike, it’s also true that no two emotional responses to a pandemic are alike. Whenever we feel a distressing emotion, there are two primary ways in which we can process it: suppression and reappraisal. Suppression is perhaps not the best named response, as it is impossible to suppress our feelings; we can only suppress how we display our feelings.

If suppression is our go-to response when we experience an uncomfortable emotion, numerous studies have found that we are likely to experience stress, burnout, and isolation from ourselves and others. Reappraisal, which is to reframe your thoughts in response to a challenging situation, is much healthier.

This pandemic has been an extended period of collective trauma — in fact, the most distressing period of our lives — for most of us. The best we can hope for after experiencing trauma is what is called post-traumatic growth. A concept developed in the mid-90s by two University of North Carolina psychologists, Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun, post-traumatic growth is the ability to achieve positive life changes after a traumatic event.

Tedeschi and Calhoun have found that the people who experience the most post-traumatic growth are those who also experience the distress of the traumatic situation they have undergone. When we allow ourselves to truly feel our emotions, including trauma, it is from the depth of our suffering that our growth can emerge.

Then, the real question that will determine our potential growth from the largest public health crisis of our lifetimes is whether we will run from our distress or embrace and learn from it.

Easier said than done. How can we confront the challenging emotions — including loneliness, anxiety, trauma, and sadness — we have experienced during this pandemic?

Here is a wonderful strategy I first read about in Susan Piver’s book, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart — you guessed it, after a devastating breakup in my life: Invite your challenging emotions over for dinner.

As you set the table for this feast, you will realize that you cannot invite over a dinner guest you can’t identify. Then, the first step is to say to yourself a few times each day, “I feel….” and see what comes next. Write down these emotions.

Once you have named how you have been feeling, literally imagine that these emotions are guests at your dinner table. Ask each guest, “So, why have you shown up this evening?” and “What are you here to teach me?” Then ask yourself, “What are my deeper values that are emerging from the presence of this emotion?”

Keep in mind that, as Berkeley psychologist Richard Lazarus elaborates, we only feel an emotion when something is important to us. While this characteristic of emotions is well-researched, what is lesser known is that we only experience an emotion when we still have something to learn in relation to the life events in which it is encoded.

This understanding comes not from academic research but from spiritual practices. For example, in her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Buddhist practitioner Pema Chodron sagely remarks that “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know … it just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter.”

Why is confronting your emotions important? Enter addiction. All addictions stem from the very human tendency to avoid the experience and subsequent learning associated with a challenging emotion. Whether it’s frustration, anxiety, abandonment, grief, trauma or any other distressing emotion, it can be easier in the short-term to attach to an external object — work, porn, gaming, your phone, alcohol or other drugs — than to acknowledge what the emotion has shown up to enable in your life.

Just as Luke Skywalker decided to confront his fears and embark on his journey to become a Jedi rather than staying home in Tatooine, we each always have this decision to make — avoid the distressing emotions we feel or rise to the learning they have shown up in our life to provoke.

Each of us is called to a personal mission that begins with recognizing that our emotions signal who we are and what we value. If we are willing to read the writing on the wall they etch for us, we move to our next level of personal development. Many of us will go to great lengths to avoid this internal work, which is why the definition of addiction is to repeatedly engage in a behavior despite its negative effects on our ability to function in our lives.

Then, our Shakespearean question is whether to confront or avoid who, at our most profound level, we are as human beings. How we answer this question will determine whether, ten years from now, we look back at the pandemic as the purveyor of all things negative in our life or as a giant reset button that enabled us to be who we are destined to become.

A few weeks ago, I had dinner with John, a friend of mine in California in his mid-60s who is grieving the loss of his wife from cancer. John was struggling to manage his grief, not an easy task at any time, and especially not during the social isolation of the pandemic. He told me he had recently spoken with a retired friend of his, who told him, “Life is a solo journey.”

“What do you think of that?” he asked me, knowing I research loneliness.

Riding Solo?

The words of John’s friend reminded me of what I used to tell people when I was a graduate student in my mid-20s: “We enter this world alone, and we will leave it alone.” Influenced by the trauma I experienced from my parent’s divorce and its aftermath, including a physically abusive
step-father, that statement made a lot of sense to me at the time.

I don’t believe it anymore.

Why? To explain how my view has changed, let’s first examine how we entered this world. Then, in the next part of this article, let’s consider how we will leave it.

How We Arrived Here

To subscribe to the belief that we entered this world alone is to forget one minor detail. We only exist in the first place thanks to the greatest sacrifice one human being can make for another: to birth them. Another human being has undergone untold physical, psychological and emotional duress, initially for nine months—replete with unprecedented levels of daily pain that anyone who has not gone through this process, including myself, cannot even begin to fathom—to accompany us on the first part of our journey.

These sacrifices don’t end when we are born. Consider this account from science writer Lydia Denworth in her book Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond:

“Before he could have his [closest] friend Christian, my son Jake had to have me—and his father, and some loving babysitters—but, in his case, mostly me. He and I spent our days together. For the first few weeks, that meant that he lay on my chest in the living room of our London apartment … Later, after we moved back to Brooklyn, we dug in the sandbox of the playground, put puzzles together, and chatted … We spent our nights together too, or at least it felt like it in the early months when we were up every few hours, nursing and rocking … In each of these interactions, even the exhausted ones, when I smiled at Jake, and he eventually smiled back, when I talked to him, and he eventually talked back, when I laughed, and he eventually laughed back, and when I cried, and he stared at me and tried to work out what was going on with Mommy, he was honing the early social skills on which his later friendships would depend.”

I hope this puts to rest the idea that we come into this world alone.

“Not so fast, Mr. Jump-to-Conclusions Author,” you may be thinking. “My parents were not as doting and attentive as Jake’s; they taught me through their neglect and abandonment that life really is a solo journey.”

Hmmm. Let’s come back to what you have shared in a later part of this article after we consider whether we leave this world alone.

Is Life a Solo Journey?

In early December of last year, my wife, our kids, and I all had Covid-19. Not a fun experience. On my fourth day after testing positive, I remember thinking about how it would either improve or deteriorate in the next few days, as has been the pattern for so many. Ensconced in my twelve-hour-per-night-sleep-filled cognitive haze, I had to face my own mortality. I didn’t really know what would happen next.

A Covid-Induced Epiphany

I’d like to say that the following epiphany came to me in my few lucid waking hours while under the thrall of the virus, but that’s not what happened. It came to me a few weeks later as I felt an ineffable gratitude that we had all regained our health.

At this point, I experienced two realizations. First, that the two most important things in life are love and life itself. Second, that of these two, we can only take one with us when we go: the love we’ve shared with other people along the way.

I now understand at a much deeper level why, at our wedding twelve years ago in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, my wife and I engraved the back of the handcrafted diorama that we gave to all of our guests depicting a typical wedding scene—with the exception that, in true Mexican style, the bride, groom, and accompanying musician were all skeletons—with the words “El Amor es el Unico que es Eterno.”

These words mean, “Love is the Only Thing that is Eternal.” The rest, including life, is ephemeral.

A Difference between Love and Fear

In this sense, love is associated with gain. How does this come to be? When we express the love within us toward others and receive love from others, we gain this invisible yet highly coveted, critical resource that will extend beyond our brief time on this planet.

Fear, on the other hand, is always associated with the opposite of gain: loss. We fear what we may lose in our lives: material possessions, a friend, our health, and of course—a fear accentuated during this pandemic—life itself.

For this reason, people who exist in a state of fear do not tend to be very kind toward others. In this sense, fear is narcissistic—we haven’t received the love we feel we deserve in our lives, and so we become angry toward others; after all, they haven’t given us what we’ve needed from them. This is the carrying card of the narcissist: blaming others for what they haven’t received.

Love is About What You Give

People who live in a state of love, on the other hand, do not think very much about what they have or have not received from others. Instead, they are focused on what they can give to their relationships. In this sense, they are empowered: while others are cognitively paralyzed by their ruminations on what they didn’t receive, the thoughts of those who live with love revolve around how, how often, when, and what they can give to help others experience more happiness in this life. They are the living embodiment of the Italian expression “Ti voglio bene” (“I desire for your happiness.”)

Finding a perfectionist that isn’t in some way proud to be one is like finding out you’ve won $100 Million on the lottery. It’s not unheard of, but it’s rare! Why? Because perfectionists believe their strong work ethic, superior attention to detail, and ability to achieve more than everyone else puts them in a class above the rest.

For the most part, they’re right! Numerous studies have shown that perfectionists out-perform non-perfectionists in sports, the workplace, and education, and there is an increasing belief that society’s largely negative portrayal of perfectionism now requires an update. But while these positive qualities of perfectionism continue to garner support, we mustn’t ignore the negative aspects. 

Perfectionism continues to cause a host of health problems for perfectionists, the endless pursuit of perfection causing many to experience chronic low self-esteem and fear of failure while being highly critical of their efforts. These symptoms can invariably lead to burnout and depression, and it often takes a major life event such as a health scare for perfectionists to realize the stress this approach brings to their lives. Even though the desire for perfection can often be a thankless task, perfectionists remain doggedly faithful to their cause. Why? Well, the answer lies in perfectionism itself.

A perfectionist’s beliefs are often rigid and unrealistic, largely driven by behaviors and beliefs developed in early life. Their ‘black-and-white’ or ‘all-or-nothing’ thinking prevents the perfectionist from considering wider alternatives or solutions to any given problem, and it’s this fixed mindset that leads them to believe that the thoughts and behaviors they display are permanent and impossible to change. This is far from the case, however. Research shows that adopting a growth mindset helps ensure a happier and healthier existence for perfectionists, and I can personally attest to its power.

In 2017, I was the music director of the Broadway musical Hamilton on tour in the U.S. when I experienced a mild heart attack on my walk home from conducting a performance. As it turned out, my right coronary artery was 90% blocked, and extensive work with a psychologist after the event would eventually identify my perfectionism as the underlying cause of the attack. It was a big wake-up call and thus began my connection with the growth mindset and the practice of many techniques that will (hopefully) ensure I’m still around for many years to come. 

Switching a mindset is relatively easy to do, but you’ll only succeed if you connect with why you’re doing it. Much like an alcoholic will only stop drinking once they’ve admitted they have a problem, the first step to making a sustained change to mindset as a perfectionist is to acknowledge that perfectionism is causing you pain. For some, that’s a bridge too far. Because most perfectionists are proud of their perfectionism’s beneficial aspects, any change in mindset is often perceived as a negative. Perfectionists are reluctant to consider change because they believe it will somehow make them lazy or unmotivated.

Change often seems like a threat to the very thing that makes them special (did I mention that the fixed mindset is part of perfectionism?!) Even though it causes them pain, perfectionists are often much happier regarding the unhealthy parts of their perfectionism as something they just have to live with in order to benefit from the healthy parts. It’s a never-ending circle of self-sacrifice — and it’s exhausting! 

But; imagine what it would be like to free yourself from the chains of unhealthy perfectionism while still benefiting from the healthy parts; understanding your perfectionism so well that you wake up one morning to find that you no longer feel the need to leave the bedroom looking like a show home or spend hours on your appearance before heading downstairs to the kitchen because you’ve realized that no-one other than you really cares. Imagine deciding that the fridge didn’t really have to be stocked in alphabetical order because your time was better spent elsewhere, or that you wouldn’t be overly bothered if you turned up for brunch with a friend a few minutes late because you decided to prioritize your perfectionism and only focus on perfecting the things that really matter to you. Imagine how much freer you would feel and how much more time you would have to perfect the things you care about the most by taking this approach. 

It’s all there for the taking — you just have to want it!

I believe that we all have a responsibility to be the best we can be in life, and that the switch to a growth mindset is one of the most powerful ways to achieve that goal. This isn’t about saying there’s something wrong with you; it’s about connecting with the realization that every perfectionist deserves to be happy and that meaningful change in your approach to perfectionism will mean a more balanced, peaceful, and calmer existence. It’s about recognizing that you are worth more than a life filled with fear and low self-esteem and that productive change within your perfectionism is not only possible but achievable without compromising standards. This change might scare you — I get it, I’ve been there — but if you can view this change as something that will offer untold rewards in your success and happiness in life, I promise you’ll be grateful for it.

Imagine what you could achieve by ‘perfecting’ your perfectionism! Be brave and embrace the growth mindset. You deserve it. You’re a perfectionist, and you’re awesome!

The goal for any leader should be to catch addictive behaviors early and then triage them on the spot. Delaying or reprimanding executives for their addiction rarely works and only leads to more problems down the line.    

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), addiction and mental issues are up 30 percent everywhere, including the workplace. This means that the original one-fifth of people having addiction problems is now at one-third. Add the additional component of working from home during a pandemic, and you have the perfect storm. 

Having to deal with a boss or coworker who has an issue with drugs or is habitually drunk and hungover can impact new business, drop morale, and create a hostile work environment. Sending an executive to a treatment facility can wipe more than 30 days from their productive work time and cost upwards of $110,000. There’s no guarantee that they will remain sober, either. This puts a drain on the business, and employees have to pick up the slack while the executive is away. 

Businesses and CEOs have been challenged to find addiction solutions that work in real-time. Sending an executive to a 30-45-day in-patient treatment facility is no longer a viable and sustainable option. Having a treatment team come to the executive at his or her home and completing an intensive three- to five-day therapy session with a live-in, sober companion seems to be a more effective solution that is faster and more dependable.

Recently, Ben, a software engineer at a large company, completed an in-home, five-day session with a 24/7 live-in, sober companion for 60 days. Ben had not been able to stay sober from alcohol and failed at several in-patient addiction rehab attempts. He had already received two DUIs and had been reprimanded by his company for coming to work hungover and drunk on several occasions. The main issue regarding Ben’s job was that a replacement would take six months to source, hire, and train and that the cost to the company would be more than $100,000. It was financially better for the company to offer Ben addiction treatment and ensure his sobriety as a valued executive. 

It’s difficult for leaders to handle normal business and the added pressures we face today with a pandemic. They are exposed to regular business duties and the stress of employee’s personal lives. Morale is low, business is down, and everyone is at home. Many stress-relieving facilities have been closed, such as gyms, country clubs, and sailing clubs, adding to stress and loneliness, and causing increased drug and alcohol use.

Jeff, a Wall Street executive, recently relapsed on cocaine and alcohol when the stock market plummeted, and his clients started pulling their money out. He needed to work longer hours and deal with added stress at home — kids home-schooling, and his wife losing her job.

The pressure became too great, and he missed several trading days. His boss was ready to fire him. Yet, he was a fabulous trader when sober and had made his company a lot of money over the five years he had worked there. His boss took a gamble and sought help for his addiction. This quick thinking resulted in an onsite recovery coach and therapist arriving on the scene, triaging the situation, and offering real-time solutions. It would have been impossible for a day trader such as Jeff to go to a 30-day in-patient rehab without angry clients and severe revenue loss. Getting same-day professional help made the difference. 

By caring for your top leadership, the staff under them will be happier and produce more quality work. You will be leading by example, and staff won’t have to deal with the added stress of their bosses’ addiction. There’s nothing worse than having to cover for a boss who is late, sloppy in their work and appearance, and angry and hostile all the time. It creates a toxic work environment that causes revenue and productivity to plummet. The goal for any leader should be to catch addictive behaviors early and then triage them on the spot. Delaying or reprimanding executives for their addiction rarely works and only leads to more problems down the line.     

So, what can you do if you expect your boss is using drugs or alcohol? Get professional help and let them assess the situation and make the best recommendations. Out-the-box thinking is key to solving the problem at its root and creating productive environments from the top down.

Every single second of the day, the human brain receives and processes a staggering amount of information — a feat that makes it the world’s fastest supercomputer.

With most of that work taking place on a subconscious level, we tend to spend our lives running on autopilot and rarely consider the brain’s tremendous efficiency. From the morning’s first yawn to the moment our head hits the pillow at night, more than 95 percent of our daily activities are performed automatically, freeing up our minds to anxiously dissect yesterday’s conversation with the boss or eagerly ponder what we might eat for dinner. Caught up in the monkey mind, we sleepwalk through the present, oblivious to the beautiful hue of the dawn sky or the unmistakable hurt in the eyes of a co-worker.

But it’s possible to tame these endlessly chattering minds of ours. Just as taking up a fitness routine can get our bodies into shape, we can adopt positive mental habits that retrain the brain. Indeed, learning to flex our mental muscles can ultimately help us tune into an entirely different brain frequency.

Research shows that the brain contains over 86 billion nerve cells (called “neurons”), which communicate with one another via potent electrical signals. Neurons fire off these signals at an incredibly high rate and the resulting electrical activity creates brain waves. But despite their shared origins, not all brain waves are the same.

The most common form of brain waves, beta waves, occurs when our monkey minds operate at full capacity, generating about sixty thoughts per minute. In this state, the brain is busy taking in information: processing, analyzing, comparing, rationalizing. While this may seem like the ideal moment for a flash of inspiration—one that suddenly unlocks the problem we’ve been grappling with — the reality is that the beta-wave state seldom allows for such revelations. In truth, our minds are typically so cluttered in beta-wave phases; they leave little to no room for imaginative solutions.

Alpha waves are another type of frequency we experience each day. As we drift in or out of sleep, our brain waves slow to around thirty thoughts per minute and, like the deepest currents of the ocean, subtly propel the subconscious mind. Half the speed of beta waves, alpha waves enable us to think laterally. If we need to tap into this wealth of creativity during the day, deep breathing can quickly lull us into the alpha state and provide a much-needed break from the bustling monkey mind.

Aristotle once said: “Give me a boy until he is seven, and I shall show you the man.” To his point, scientific studies have shown that the minds of children function quite differently from those of adults. Since their brains generate only about fifteen thoughts per minute (by way of a type of frequency known as theta waves), everything a child experiences up until the age of eight goes directly to the subconscious. Understanding this phenomenon is vital to the release of pent-up traumas.

For adults and children alike, sleep is a time to regenerate, both mentally and physically. Our brains slow down, eventually bringing about deep sleep and its attendant delta waves. One of the most mysterious forms of brain waves, delta waves, creates space for healing, allowing us to wake refreshed and rejuvenated the next morning.

Still, some of the most exciting neuroscientific research centers on the subject of gamma waves, which are associated with intense concentration. For most of us, this type of brain wave occurs solely as a split-second flash of inspiration or enlightenment. However, a recent study by Dr. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin suggests that the gamma state may endure much longer for specific individuals. In his research, Davidson discovered that the world’s great meditation masters might access the gamma state not only during their meditation practice but throughout their daily activities. At this powerful frequency, the brain can heighten perception, empowering us to make great strides in our inner development and experience profound compassion. 

Thanks to the many studies carried out since Norman Vincent Peale published his groundbreaking 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking, we have gained a much firmer grasp of how the amazingly complex organ known as the human brain functions and thrives. We know that — like any of the muscles that make up the body — it benefits from a good workout. By learning something new, for instance, we can stimulate our brain cells to communicate differently and, in turn, form new pathways that enable us to tackle everyday problems in more creative ways. Even something as easy as changing up our usual route to work can get our neurons firing! By rewiring our brains to circumvent old thought patterns and forge new mental circuits, we can unleash the power of positive thinking: one of our greatest allies in the fight against depression, disease, and poor mental health.

The good news is you don’t need to be a great meditation master to access the extraordinary benefits of gamma waves. Even just a few minutes of meditative breathing or a simple visualization technique can have a significant impact on your mood. Better yet, these methods are as free as the air we breathe, available to anyone ready to embark on the journey toward inner harmony and total wellbeing. 

More information on the intricate workings of the human brain and their role in our health can be found in Lola Till’s recent book, Be Your Own Harmonist (Waterside Productions, 2020), in which the author provides simple meditation techniques along with balanced recipes for enhancing wellness on every level. 

The COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has changed life as we know it, as well as how we manage our households.

While being shut mostly in our homes or observing infection prevention guidelines when leaving our house, it can be pretty hard to grapple with the reality of the world in which we now live. And yet, this is what you as a leader must do to survive and thrive in this new abnormal.

Same Home, Different House Rules?

Susan, an entrepreneur and former coaching client of mine, reached out for help because her household was having difficulty adjusting to the long-term impact of our new pandemic reality. As the founder of a quickly-growing startup in the medical devices industry, she was used to a routine and thrived by keeping her work life separate from her personal life.

However, as the months of staying at home went by, her relationship with her husband, who was the primary caretaker of their nine-year-old child pre-pandemic, started to erode. She found it difficult to concentrate on her startup due to frequent interruptions from her husband and child, and she found herself becoming more and more curt with them.

It was hard enough when school was canceled in the early months of the pandemic, as well as summer camp. And it became increasingly impossible when her son’s school transitioned to online only for the Fall. When I met with Susan over Zoom, I told her that there were some essential steps that she needed to take to adjust to the new COVID-19 reality.

How Your Household Can Survive and Thrive in the Pandemic

First and foremost, we won’t get anywhere if we don’t face the facts. We need to acknowledge that COVID-19 fundamentally disrupted our world, turning it upside down in a few short weeks in February and March 2020. We have to move past the normalcy bias‘s discomfort and our intuitive feeling that the world should go back to normal.

The normalcy bias is one of over a hundred dangerous judgment errors that scholars in cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics like myself call cognitive biases. They result from a combination of our evolutionary background and specific structural features in how our brains are wired.

So how can your household effectively overcome the normalcy bias to adapt to the uncertainty and dislocation that accompanies this new abnormal?

While you’re in a new abnormal, your underlying needs and wants remain the same. You just need to figure out different ways toward satisfying them.

You might have heard of Abraham Maslow’s theory of human motivation and the pyramid of needs based on his work. More recent research, summarized in Scott Barry Kaufman’s excellent book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, revises this model. Kaufman shows that our fundamental needs consist of safety, connection, and self-esteem, and we will feel deprived without them. We also have needs that help us achieve our full potential through personal growth. This is what Maslow called “self actualization” and what Kaufman more clearly defined as exploration, love, and purpose. A good approach to adapting to the new abnormal is evaluating your life through the lens of these needs and ensuring that you can still satisfy them.

Connection to Others

The most challenging element for Susan stemmed from the fundamental need for connection to others. It’s a topic I describe in more depth in my best-seller, The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships.

First, consider your immediate connections with members of the household.

If you have a romantic partner in your household, you’ll have to figure out how to interact healthily, given that you’re together 24/7. You’ll likely get into each other’s spaces and on each other’s nerves. It’s much wiser to anticipate and work out these problems in advance than have them blow up down the road. The same principle applies to other members of your family. If you have older children who moved home after university closed, or younger children who aren’t going to school after it closed, you’ll need to figure out how to deal with them cooped up inside. This includes staying in touch with their schools to get updates on online school work.

You’ll have to put more thought into dealing with older adults over 60 or anyone with underlying health conditions in your household (including yourself if you fit either category). Given their much greater vulnerability to COVID-19, you and other members of your household need to take serious measures to prevent them from getting ill. That means being more careful yourself than you might otherwise be since over half of all those with COVID-19 have no or light symptoms.

Second, what about your connection to those you care about who aren’t part of your household? Your romantic partner might not be part of your household. Depending on how vulnerable to COVID-19 you and other members of your household might be, you might choose to take the risk of physical intimacy with your romantic partner. But you have to make this decision consciously rather than casually. Or you might decide to have a social-distance relationship, meeting at a distance of 10 feet or by videoconference.

During one of our coaching sessions, Susan said she hadn’t realized how strained her relationship with her husband was until I had pointed out the need for healthy interaction while being together 24/7. After our talk, she sat down with her husband to have a serious conversation about the situation. Together, they decided to stick to their separate routines, have their own spaces apart. Susan would spend time at her home office and her husband and child would spend days accomplishing school work in the living area. They would come together as a family after the workday was done — as they would have before the pandemic — so that they wouldn’t get on each other’s nerves.

Soon after, they also sat down and conversed with their young child regarding COVID-19, remaining calm and simply discussing what they, as a family, needed to do to stay healthy. Due to their reassuring manner, their child expressed more willingness to open up to them about any worries he might have regarding the pandemic.

Conclusion

Towards the end of our coaching sessions, Susan informed me that she had finally established a balanced work-life routine that suits her and protects her relationships with her loved ones.

While the new abnormal ushered in by COVID-19 has brought unprecedented changes to our lives, there’s no reason you can’t survive and thrive in the new abnormal while we wait a few more months for a vaccine. You need to identify, anticipate, and take care of your fundamental needs.

With the remaining season at New York’s iconic opera house canceled for the foreseeable future, the management of The Met hopes to brighten the lives of audiences and members even while their stage is dark.

Each day a different presentation from the company’s Live in HD series is released for free through an on-demand streaming service, beginning at 7:30 p.m. EDT. Opera offers a reflection of who we are through dramatic storytelling and music and explores what it means to be human.

The ancient craft deals with big life themes such as love, death, loss, joy, anger, and passion — all the natural emotions we’ll experience as we ride out the pandemic and rebuild a broken world.

MetOpera.org

Scotland has made sanitary products free to all women, becoming the first nation in the world to take such a step against “period poverty.”

The measure makes tampons and sanitary pads available at designated public places such as community centres, youth clubs and pharmacies, at an estimated annual cost to taxpayers of 24 million pounds ($32 million U.S.).

The Period Products (Free Provision) Scotland Bill passed unanimously, and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon called it “an important policy for women and girls.”

“Proud to vote for this groundbreaking legislation, making Scotland the first country in the world to provide free period products for all who need them,” Sturgeon posted on Twitter.

During the debate, the bill’s proposer, Scottish Labour MP Monica Lennon, said: “No one should have to worry about where their next tampon, pad or reusable is coming from.

“Scotland will not be the last country to consign period poverty to history, but we have the chance to be the first,” she said.

In 2018, Scotland became the first country to provide free sanitary products in schools, colleges and universities. Some 10% of girls in Britain have been unable to afford sanitary products, according to a survey by the children’s charity Plan International in 2017, with campaigners warning many skip classes as a consequence.

Sanitary products in the United Kingdom are taxed at 5%, a levy that officials have blamed on European Union (EU) rules that set tax rates on certain products.

Now that Britain has left the EU, British Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has said he would abolish the “tampon tax” in January 2021.

By Lin Taylor @linnytayls, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst.

Bereavement is defined as a period of intense grief, especially following the death of a loved one. Unfortunately, society has no respect for those grieving. Society views grief as something to get over, like the flu. 

After a few days, and the griever is expected to function as if life hadn’t shattered into a million little pieces. 

Corporate America is no better. Statistics show that 89% of employers offer three days of paid bereavement leave. Corporate America continues to set unrealistic expectations regarding how quickly employees must return to an operational level as before their loss. 

You may wonder why I became involved in advocating to change society’s perception of how long a griever is permitted to grieve.  

In January 2015, I was employed at one of the largest hospital systems in my state of Delaware. My employment as a registered nurse stretched over 36 years. I was never late. I never missed a shift. I foolishly believed I was a valued employee. I never imagined grieving my son might be a cause for termination. What I learned from this experience set me on a new trajectory of advocacy work.

January 3rd, 2015, was the day my world spun off its axis. Matt, my youngest son, died suddenly and unexpectedly. 

Ironically, I was working a 12-hour shift when the news hit me with a force I still cannot put into words. His death shattered me to my core.  

I could no longer function. My brain, along with my heart, was irreparably broken. The three-day bereavement leave allowed by the hospital was spent sitting in a shocked state. Numb and barely surviving. Three days flew by as I tried to pull myself together enough to plan his funeral. 

Three days of pure hell pretending to be aware of what I was expected to do when all I wanted to do was disappear.

Although I had plenty of Family and Medical Leave (FMLA), my employer never informed me that it doesn’t cover bereavement, nor does it protect your job. There is no legislation in place to protect your livelihood after losing a child, parent, or spouse.

Imagine being a newborn intensive care unit nurse, responsible for the sickest newborns and expecting to return to that role when you can barely put one foot in front of the other. Imagine staring at your microwave, not remembering how to get it to work. Yet, my employer was demanding my return to my role as if I could function as I did before my son’s death.

What society fails to recognize is the death of a child results in a tsunami of unresolved grief. Society is reluctant to talk about grief. 

Bereavement continues to be that elephant in the room, especially in the corporate world. Many parents suffer from cardiac issues, physical disabilities, alcoholism, depression, and death after child loss, but these issues are not addressed.  

Gloria Vanderbilt. once said: “I’ve heard it said that the greatest loss a human being can experience is the loss of a child. This is true. It doesn’t just change you, it demolishes you.”

Needless to say, I was terminated from my job weeks after my son’s death. I was still out on FMLA when I was terminated. 

I received no letter of termination nor a phone call from my manager. To my shock, this was legal, and the hospital was in their rights. As mentioned, FMLA doesn’t protect bereaved employees.  

Years passed, and the coronavirus hit. Our country is now full of grieving people. Unfortunately, not much has changed in how bereaved employees are treated. I continued to get calls from grieving parents, and sadly our stories continue to mimic each other’s. First came the loss of a child, then came job loss.  

Imagine my surprise when I was contacted by a group known as Evermore. 

They asked if I would use my personal experience to assist in their advocacy initiative. Joyal Mulheron founded this organization after the death of her infant daughter, and is no stranger to this life-shattering grief.

She, too, was asked to leave a job of advising high-ranking politicians when she struggled to make sense of her life. 

She watched her surviving children struggle, too, as her family turned upside down.  

Joyal witnessed the broken system firsthand as she tried to navigate her daughter’s illness, subsequent death, and dealing with the insurance industry. “Every facet of life, every interaction you have is so hurtful,” she says.

They say that when God closes one door, He opens another. Both Joyal and I have experienced exactly that. Coronavirus restrictions and a cancer diagnosis put a stop to my advocacy work. The loss of Eleanora changed the path of Joyal’s career. 

Two mothers, once strangers, were now bonded by the loss of their child, both fighting to change how the world saw their grief. 

Evermore, founded in 2014 by Joyal, is a nonprofit dedicated to making the world a more livable place for bereaved families. They are committed to making America a place where all families have access to care, programs, policies, and resources that provide support after life-altering loss.  

In March, Evermore advanced a bereavement care provision in the U.S. House of Representatives, and today this provision is being considered in the U.S. Senate.  

On November 19th, Evermore held a public summit that addressed grief, and the changes needed to become legislation. Many experienced grief attended, including Cindy McCain and Casey Affleck. The summit reached hundreds of people, who have now joined a movement for change. 

“As founder and director, I’m building a social movement to change the way America views, responds and respects bereavement care for families, providers, and our nation’s communities,” said Joyal, at the summit.

Bereavement is a public health epidemic that has a significant impact on our jobs and health — affecting both the physical and psychological aspects of our lives. Evermore is working toward implementing a national standard regarding the treatment of the bereaved and working toward establishing the first-ever White House Office of Bereavement Care.  

In our country, we have many rights. Taking time to grieve is not one of them. Together we will start the change.

To learn how you can become involved, go to www.Live-Evermore.org. To sign our petition https://live-evermore.org/bereavement-care-petition/.