When the pandemic was first reported, Sloane sat in the dark for over an hour, trying to clear the anxious thoughts zipping around in his head. His wife found him there and asked what the matter was. “This is going to be tough,” is the only thing he knew to say.
The following morning he showed up at the local Training Center for an evaluation before going in to work. His expertise hadn’t been tested in a while. He really had no idea to what degree his self-awareness skills had increased. The test was pretty simple. He sat in a padded chair with foot pedals and handholds; a bar with angled grips was suspended above his head. He donned VR goggles and was asked to match the prototype in the corner of the action screen. He followed a path through different terrain and weather, stopped to engage in various adventures along the way: a really scary zip line, knocking down doors, building bridges, pelvic bowl drumming for body alignment, things like that. No matter how his muscles responded to the stimuli, he was asked to match the prototype instead. In times of great stress, those who were capable of letting go of fear in the face of their worst fears were asked to leverage their expertise for the benefit of all humanity. Sloane did his best. Afterward, he waited a few minutes for his readout, feeling nervous. What would he be asked to do?
He rated the highest score in pelvic bowl drumming. He was asked to add one hour pelvic bowl drumming to his daily routine, focusing on releasing pandemic initiated stress as it occurred. That didn’t seem too bad. Sloane relaxed and headed for work. As soon as he crossed the threshold, however, he knew something major was wrong. Lockdown and social distancing would start in earnest the following day. Everyone’s pay was instantly cut 20%, the business battened down all hatches to weather the inevitable storm. People were sent home and warned they might lose their jobs altogether. Overnight everyone’s stress investment tripled, teetered alarmingly close to utter panic.
At home, Sloane told his wife that he had been asked to add an hour of pelvic bowl drumming to his daily routine. “I’m supposed to focus on releasing my stress, he said. That’s when he retreated to the dark to sit and think. His anxious, zipping thoughts reminded him of the zip line in the VR test. He visualized he was riding the zip line, using his pedals, handholds and angle bar to clear some of the thoughts. Then he picked up his air drum sticks, visualized the inside of his pelvic bowl, and, starting at the top of the right hip, softly tapped his way down into the bowl’s valley. “This is going to be tough,” was all he knew to say.
