Q: What social changes and responsibilities have you seen people making during the pandemic? Do you think the pandemic will make us a more socially conscious society?

"Literally while doing something as simple as walking my dog, I have noticed people's eye contact changing. People are looking at each other. You notice even more because if they are wearing a mask, they look at you and there is a real connection. You SEE people more. People are taking each other in now. It is in the little things, like, we ordered some indian food and they put in extra things for us. It was just kindness, offering free food to us. We were supporting them and they were supporting us when they gave us some free food. It felt like we were taking care of each other. Specifically for Nashville, we just recently went through a tornado. It came through and it demolished a lot of houses and businesses 15 minutes away from us. That happened — and the pandemic came right behind it. In Nashville, I can feel everyone in my community — it is an energy thing. I feel everyone is being very supportive. We cannot physically touch but the energy from one another is palpable and the support system is pretty palpable. I see people sending Gatorade to hospitals. My friend sent some Gatorade and water to the hospital and she got this email that just said, “thank you so much”. The people working are trying to heal with no way to hydrate, so little things like that help that you just might not think about. People are thinking outside the box of how to help one another. We should be thinking like that everyday, all the time, but this pandemic has really opened up our hearts to reach out and help in any way we can.

Initial reactions and feelings:

… Now that I have had time to process, I have started to see the silver lining in some of it. Obviously there are still scary moments. But part of my yoga training is to open my mind to other styles of yoga, and the people that train me said to us, “Start taking as many classes as you can from all different teachers so that you can open up your practice and understand that everyone does it differently, and everyone is different in their teaching style.” I remember them saying this in the beginning, and now that we are here, I realize I now have the opportunity to take class from so many different people online. That is the silver lining for me."