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Episode 113 – LOCKDOWN: Decoding the Covid Complex

May 28, 2020


 

Oppressed, repressed and regressed, the forced restrictions of the Covid Complex have us in its grip. We may see friends and family more often than ever, but only on a screen.

Work, school, home, weekdays, weekends—time and tasks slide around like Jello on a hot plate. Loss of structure, variety, movement and touch are destabilizing. Confined to tight physical and emotional spaces, we may collapse into ourselves or lash out at loved ones. We hear contradictory messages on the news and go outside only if masked and defended.

The Covid Complex is both personal and collective—it affects each of us differently and it affects us all. Most of us have been forced inward physically and psychologically; perhaps this time is also an opportunity to rediscover inner resources and experience depth of being.

Dream

“I am viewing media footage filmed from a helicopter looking down onto the forward section of a fast moving 60 foot solo sailed yacht that is heading out to sea. The yacht is hard to the wind, heeled over, plunging through a 1.5 meter sea, with ocean spray sweeping over the bow. The sky is overcast, the sea grey, the wind is blowing over 25 knots and the land is out of sight and astern. A man (solo sailor) of approximately 70 years, dressed in yellow wet weather gear, is steadily making his way aft from the bow of the yacht toward the stern. He is moving in a crouch using a hand for support in an experienced and careful manner. As he moves he is also tending to the headsail that is temporarily impaired by the life lines; he is caring in his attention to the sail. A news commentator is wishing the sailor well as he embarks on a long offshore passage. I am yearning that this will one day be me embarking on such a passage and I am empathizing with the harmony that the sailor is demonstrating toward the yacht by smoothing the sail and his experienced movements in challenging conditions. Suddenly the sailor looks up toward the stern and breaks into a run, toward the stern. However, his foot catches on a fixed piece of rigging and he trips, falling forward, hitting his head hard on the deck. The news commentator is saying that this is the last time the sailor was seen or heard from and is now missing at sea. I am thinking how could it be the last time he was seen as there were people recording the footage and flying the helicopter. I can’t understand how he could be missing. I wake up feeling shaken and bewildered.”

Check out this episode!

2 Comments

  1. Michal Ginter

    Thanks for another inspiring and thought-provoking episode.

    Let me point your attention to one aspect, if I may. At some point, Lisa noted that this feels almost unprecedented. Many people feel that way. The thing is, what may be unprecedented is to be living in a world where a disruption of similar magnitude didn’t visit us for such a long time that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in the middle of one, and what comes after.

    Wars, famines and epidemics had been a regularly-recurring reality of life until relatively recently, if you look at it from a historical perspective.

    I’m reading a French novel that takes place in Prague in the early 1700s during the last major plague outbreak. The lockdown descriptions look uncannily familiar — minus Zoom, Skype and such.

    I’m sure such disasters, and recovery from them, had their role in shaping the individual and collective psyches of us modern humans. Perhaps, with the benefit of modern psychology, we might be better able to glean lessons from past recoveries and, hopefully, not have to re-live a carbon copy of what happened after the Spanish flu.

    Reply
  2. Sandy Hubbard

    Hi Lisa, Deb and Joe,
    thank you for interpreting my dream with such considered thought and empathetic insight.
    All the points that you have made in the dream interpretation are entirely relevant and have helped solidify my trust and commitment to the therapy process.
    Whilst I could expand on each point you made I will just say that: ‘…what are your lifelines..’ and ‘…careful of an egoic approach… (obsessively)…’ I am holding in close consideration.
    ‘…what’s been lost’, ‘…the father complex as a hero failed…’ and ‘…’the last amplification..’ feels to me like you made a hero’s journey by throwing a dart of light into my heart and the ‘distress of not finding it’ has now been pulled back, the veil has been lifted.
    Thank you for your clarity and helping me.
    PS I am now convinced that my therapist is the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena. ????

    Reply

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