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The Gifts of COVID

By Luree Benjamin posted 03-09-2021 10:15 PM

  

“There is only one journey. Going inside yourself.”-Rainer Maria Rilke

            For me, like many, the pandemic has been a time of deep reflection, acceptance, and personal growth. It has been a time for slowing down, welcoming change, and a season of respite, endurance, self-reflection, and self-acceptance. Thoreau reminds me, “there is no companion so companionable as solitude.” I can say that I know that each day will offer its gifts, and, as George Herbert suggests, I can “take the gentle path,” as I embark deeper into this inner excursion.   

           As a member of the 2020-2021 Certificate of Leadership cohort and with the DiSC assessment tool’s aid, the leadership skill I am slowly trying on for size is my ability to have difficult conversations. As such, these conversations have resulted in the ending of relationships and the renewing of others, and it has been fraught with not only beauty but immense pain. However, it has ushered in permission to ask for what I want and state what I need which, at times, means saying an emphatic no. Through these conversations, I am learning the gift of implementing better boundaries and becoming more and more comfortable becoming me. After all, “when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves,” to quote Viktor Frankl. In this time, what I am learning is grace not only for others but for myself, as I am thankful others continuously extend compassion to a wobbly new me. I know I am on a new path, my path, because through these honest, yet difficult conversations, I am not (put) in a position to betray myself, and it is worth this journey to self.

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