Obliged to stay at home during this all-encompassing pandemic, most of find ourselves in solitude with lots of unusual time on our hands. Without our typical array of expectations, responsibilities and distractions, we are left with the endless flow of thoughts and emotions inside our head. Some of us dislike this up close and personal view of our minds. We realize that most of us spend our days from a mechanical and material dominated place. We have been conditioned to allow other people and outside circumstances to dictate our thoughts and belief system which in turn determine the quality of our lives.

Some of us, however, are lucky enough to see this as a fertile opportunity. We can chose to turn up the volume of our automatic thinking. We can take inventory of the external sources of our thought processes and instead more freely and deliberately chose a more personal belief system in order to live a life that is truly our own. We can chose to live inside out.

We can expand our true identities and come from a more empowering part of our personalities that generate a certain energy, a certain frequency, that harmonize with people and things at that same frequency.

As a recovering workaholic and perfectionist, I have surprised myself with my enjoyment of being at home, and my ability to be with myself. I have allowed myself the luxuries of taking an afternoon nap, going for a walk in the mid-morning warmth of the sun, stopping to cross the street to pet my neighbor’s friendly dog, and stooping to inhale the delicious fragrances of my other neighbor’s garden. How telling that I think of these easily available activities as luxuries in my usually conditioned daily life! It is only when I let go of living outside in that I allow myself to come face to face with those very things that bring me that yummy sense of deep fulfillment, those “little“ things that feed my soul.

I am finding that my mother was right about taking the time to “stop and smell the roses”. For me, it is those little things that are truly the big things that punctuate feelings that only I can give myself. Living inside out is what I am taking with me when this awful pandemic is over. What silver lining will you take for yourself?