Pandemic Parenting: A True Spiritual Test

I was sick during the entire month of December. It started with a cold and then turned into Omicron. I thought at the time it was a sinus infection resulting from the cold, but nope. Definitely Covid.

Prior to this period of sickness, I was flourishing. I had ample time and energy to meditate, regularly achieving heightened states such as unity consciouness. I even got to a legit First Jhana (like, monk style) twice in my meditation practice which I didn’t think was possible. I had my spiritual mentees as well who I was helping on their own journey. Reality’s truths were unwinding at a rapid rate and progress was being made. It was all satisfying.

But a whole new spirituality is more prominent now. It’s called Reality Acceptance. And reality has been a toilet bowl full of crap.

Ok, so, the crap continued in December. I got healthy just in time for my two boys to have two weeks off from my school and my superhero wife to catch Covid. We had to cancel Christmas plans and do it at home. And the suffering continued: schools didn’t return in the new year. I had two boys ages five and eight doing Zoom school all last week, and next week they’ll be home as well.

This was too much Shitness for me. Too much kid. Too much sickness. Too much relentless bad news and stress. There was, and is, no escaping this shit situation.

And so, this became a spiritual exercise. When you’re faced with Too Much Shit in your life, how do you handle it?

The answer, for me, was to not fight the shitness. To embrace it. To realize that I’m in a shit mood and to be OK with it. To take a day off from work to do absolutely nothing because to do otherwise would have meant a potential psychotic breakdown.

I embraced, and continue to embrace, escapism. I talked and laughed with people on LinkedIn. I wrote social media posts. I Became Famous again after eschewing the limelight three months before. I chased pleasure in a situation where only pain existed in reality.

I’ve found a new strength in this test. I’ve found that reality will throw the whole everything at you and you can choose to fold or choose to accept. I’ve chosen to accept. It’s not as glamorous as reaching heightened states of consciousness, but it’s just as satisfying.