This experience with quarantine and confinement has really forced us all to focus on how being in another person’s presence can be unhealthy if the proper precautions aren’t taken. In many situations around the world, it is suggested that we avoid physical interaction altogether.

What about if we extended that premise to energy?

Loving someone does not mean that you must interact with their energy. It doesn’t mean that you have to be in the same room as them or even that you have to keep them in your life. Sometimes with my nine-year-old, I have to take a deep breath and say, “I am going to love you from the other room right now.” In the past, I have ended friendships and relationships when I realized that these individuals had work to do on themselves that I couldn’t help them with. In some cases, their struggles didn’t allow me to be the best version of myself and in other cases, those struggles led them to treat me with less respect than I deserved. If they were not willing to do what needed to act in a healthy way toward me and to respect my boundaries, I had to wish them well and preserve my own mental and physical health.

This is not selfish. 

This doesn’t mean that you don’t love someone.

This means that you love yourself and that you realize your own worth.

This means that you love them enough to empower them to fly or fall, change or remain stagnant (and often toxic.)

It’s not easy by any means, but people are energy and energy must flow. Sometimes, we are just on a different current. Sometimes our vibes are higher than theirs or vice versa and it is human nature to seek out people who share your vibes. When we are around people that don’t it can cause anxiety, depression, stress, discomfort and these things can start manifesting as disease.

If you can’t raise another person up to meet you where you are, wish them well. Leave the door open if you feel you can should their energy shift, but let them go in love.

For me, this new normal of physically distancing myself from people isn’t much of a change. My closest friends are states away to begin with, so our decades of friendships have already endured this. While you are adjusting in your own way to this physical distancing (the social aspect can still be there), may I suggest that you analyze who in your life has “Corona Energy”. That is, harmful when exposed to and better to avoid. 

Whose energy do you need to distance yourself from?