POST-PANDEMIC LIFE INVITATION BY HOLLY DUCKWORTH
t was day five of a fiveday Chaos to Calm Challenge when Cindi piped up and said, “I’m so glad I participated in this challenge because it showed me my default mode.” Let me be clear… nowhere in the 5-day minicourse had I even said the word default mode. In less than 20 seconds, Cindi shined the light on what the course meant for her. In the challenge, Cindi saw the default mode of life personally and professionally. How she lived prepandemic. She felt her numbness and was waking up to new possibilities.
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While I knew instinctively what default mode was, I had to Google it. Default mode network is a group of brain
regions that seem to show lower levels of activity when we are engaged in a particular task like paying attention, but higher levels of activity when we are awake and not involved in any specific mental exercise. Mental numbness. Or as I refer to it… life pre-pandemic. The pandemic of 2020 threw all of us off our default mode in every way. No person, place, or thing was left untouched by the pandemic. Therefore, none of us are left untouched by its possibilities. As we curl up for the long winter’s nap of 2020/2021, I invite you to decide on your new default mode. Will you accept this Universe’s invitation to change, write a new default mode?
This is your invitation to a new life. How will you fill out the invitation? At your party/event/experience, what will you eat? What will you do? Who will you invite? Will you make your post-pandemic life easier, or harder? When will you begin? This winter is the slow and steady acceptance that our world will not be going back to “normal”. Can someone tell me what normal is anyway? Human’s post-pandemic will be different. Now is the time to choose that different. Create your new party/event/life or default experience.
