Of Note: Feeling the Feelings

That Discomfort You're Feeling Is Grief by Scott Berinato
Harvard Business Review, March 2020

Late-Stage Pandemic Is Messing With Your Brain by Ellen Cushing
The Atlantic, March 8, 2021

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off," Gloria Steinem explained. Beyond the enervating, contemporary realities they reflect back to us, there is comfort to be found in these two articles naming powerful, current phenomena affecting our daily lives and selves. "If we can name it, perhaps we can manage it," writes Scott Berinato. The goal, on the other side of grief, is finding meaning in it. He names the "micro and macro" grieving we are doing a full year into this global pandemic that has rewritten our lives. This grief framework allows us, too, to say (and believe), "This is a temporary state." Essentially, the piece concludes that when we let ourselves feel the feelings, they will move through us. Relatedly, Ellen Cushing explores how "Late-Stage Pandemic Is Messing with Your Brain," which also sounds dispiriting at first glance, yet offers both affirmation and hope. Cushing summarizes: "Now, in the cold, dark, featureless middle of our pandemic winter, we can neither remember what life was like before nor imagine what it'll be like after." The beautiful three dimensions of our lives are coming back, she theorizes, and with the accompanying changes in our behavior, will end our mild cognitive impairment. If not for its neuroscience or psychology, Cushing's piece is worth reading just for the sensory delight of it, as her prose transports us back into the vibrant, lost world of texture and touch.