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The coronavirus has brought me home, literally and figuratively. What is it teaching you?

“Illness is a shortcut”, my yoga teacher told me, one day.

I am seeing how much Aline was right as the pandemic–and the lockdown that has gone along with it—makes many of us re-consider the things that are not quite working for us—whether it’s our health, a job, a relationship, or just the way we deal with a specific situation.

I have been affected by the coronavirus, too.

Mid-March, shortly before Georgians were told to “shelter-in-place”, my boyfriend at the time convinced me to leave my apartment in Atlanta where I live and to drive to stay with him in North Georgia. Love, six acres of land and a vegetable garden motivated me to pack and go.

There was another deeper motivation—the need to be heard and accepted, to find a nest where I could feel safe and secure. Something that I have longed for, all my life.

In short, that day in March, I was driving to paradise.

In the course of three weeks, I realized that, as beautiful as this paradise was, it was his paradise. I felt who I was didn’t fit in. I caught myself saying“yes” when really my soul meant “no”, too often. I was compromising my integrity.

In the end, I chose to say “no”. I chose to confront my fear of being rejected. That’s quite an accomplishment for someone who has constantly tried to meet the expectations and desires of others. 

I also chose to confront the fear of driving through a locked down Georgia and Atlanta, in the midst of the pandemic.

I drove back home feeling peaceful. “Safe in integrity”, said my friend Roy.

Since then, I have been doing something I have never done before. I have been busy creating my own paradise.

Whether it’s practicing yoga, re-arranging my office, re-planting, bonding with family and friends in new ways, teaching French and yoga therapy, occupying my blog again, cooking, you name it, I am rooting in my own nest. Feeling safe. What I have been searching outside of myself for decades, has been inside all along.

I live in integrity. I feel it in my body. What better thing could I do to protect myself from a life-threatening disease?