All it took for us to tune in, was a Pandemic.

We are all born with five plus one. Five being our senses and plus one; being our gut instinct, intuition, that inner voice that makes you feel like doing something, purely because it "feels right," or "feels good," which is why as children we are so enormously experimental and curious. Why is it that, as we grow more adult we abandon our instinct to get curiouser and curiouser, (yes, I had to squeeze in an Alice in Wonderland reference) and only progress doing the norms defined by the exterior voices to make us believe that these choices make sense, purely because they have been tried and tested? Why do the untried, and untested conceive severe anxiety and resistance as we are growing up? The older you get, the scarier it is to even visualize getting on the route of the untried, untested and hence they convert to the uninitiated.

During this time of the forced global pause, as the pandemic locked us in, I got angry, then frustrated, then downright helpless following which I got talking - to the people that have always surrounded me, to the people that haven't, to my surroundings, and to myself.

It's almost as if, this pandemic, arranged for me to tune in.

I am fairly convinced, it has had a similar effect on a lot of people. Our social feeds are thoroughly crowded with those that have newly discovered what they enjoy creating, what really brings them happiness, and makes their lives a lot richer. Whether it is spending time with their loved ones, upskilling, educating, cooking, learning a new language, writing, reading, dancing, singing or rediscovering a long foregone hobby - we have all begun to finally tune in.

Do you notice though, most of what we have begun to tune in to, trace us back to something we perhaps loved doing as children?

Do you notice, how much closer we are to ourselves when we tune into our inherent instincts and let our insides take a call as opposed to allowing the exteriors to determine what should be our next step.

Do you notice how much clarity you have when you are listening to what feels right, and what feels good?

Do you notice, how much calm there is when the internal battle has stopped?

Do you?

I am envious of those individuals that never needed a total shutdown to reboot. The ones that fearlessly monitored (and really listened) to their instinct, remained tamelessly driven and kept advancing forward, believing that the chosen direction for them was the one that their gut told them was. I am desirous of those that have always been five plus one.

Nevertheless, since our current reality has gotten us to that moment to pause, and hit the reset button, all isn't absolutely lost, is it? Sit back, and reconnect whilst in the pause. Familiarize yourself with your five plus one, and once you have found it, maintain that subscription, and promise yourself to never let it go.

With love,

Stories by Giggles