Introducing a seven-day reflection about what wellness feels like,
and how to find it.
"The name of the game is never give up," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, MSc coached, stressing the importance of identifying, testing, treating and isolating COVID-19 cases to control the 2020 global coronavirus outbreak. Imagining the world stopping together was initially thrilling. On March 12, the day sandwiched between the WHO's declaration of a pandemic (March 11) and Trump's announcement of a national emergency (March 13), I exclaimed to my mom, "It's a global snow-day!" My elation quickly sunk to my gut as I realized we don't know when we'll start again. My own jam-packed spring plans dissipated within 48 hours as I received a train of cancellations to conferences, sporting events, banquets, and job interviews. Even my two side-gigs have been postponed due to the outbreak. Once the flurry passed, only four (virtual) grad classes, one (virtual) book club, and two weddings remained on my calendar. All other hour-blocks loomed planless. My shoulders slumped.
"Be well," we say. Perhaps trite, but what can we say? ... Can we simply choose wellness?
After my spring break in Westchester and NYC from March 7 - 13 (yep, you guessed it, right in the middle of their coronavirus outbreak ), I decided to self-quarantine once I returned home to Cincinnati. As I revisited that bare calendar, which now too closely resembled Kroger's pasta aisle and disinfectant shelves, my emotions churned. So, I did what is (never) advised for a person experiencing emotional discomfort: I sat stagnant, scrolling Facebook, binging youtube news channels, and rereading awkwardly strained emails from every business I've shopped at over the past three years. Rereading a professor's COVID update email, my eye caught what I'd read many times over the past week. Yet, this time, I saw it: be well.
"Be well," we say. Perhaps trite, but what can we say? Our minds reel with worries about transferring all our gatherings into virtual formats, the money lost from cancelled spring plans, our family members getting sick, getting sick ourselves, testing positive, being quarantined, the recession, the death tolls... Some of us feel the worries in our bodies, instead, and we feel depressed, nauseous, shaky, or exhausted. "Be well." Can we simply choose wellness? While I'm not arguing that willing ourselves out of this illness will protect us from it (if that idea is most comforting, stop reading this and watch Inception or The Matrix instead), I am contending that willing ourselves into wellness will strengthen us for whatever the future holds. As we all find ourselves unexpectedly isolated and our global rhythms disrupted, wellness becomes key in our arsenal against the coronavirus.
Thus, as I begin my 336-hour quarantine, I invite you to join me each day this week as I explore what wellness can feel like, and how we can (and must) return to it over and over again.
Stay tuned.