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AFTER SPENDING NEARLY TWO YEARS indoors wondering when, if ever, the coast would be clear to leave our homes, the post-vaccine reopening of the world has begun. It has been, by almost any measure, both astoundingly weird and deeply complicated. As the global population continues to grapple with what safety actually means in today’s world, most of us are being called to interact with other human beings again outside our own contained ecosystems. This means returning to offices, navigating crowded public spaces, and once again doing things we might have previously taken for granted — going to a dinner party at a friend’s house, overseeing an indoor playdate with other people’s children, being in a venue full of people listening to live music, or watching professional athletes kick around a ball.

For happy homebodies such as myself, this extended period of forced introversion has provided a reprieve from the pressures of social obligation, but for more extroverted friends and loved ones, the solitude of the pandemic has been a unique kind of torture. As the rules for social interaction and public safety continue to evolve, the notion of getting back to “normal life” remains a sort of mirage — a finish line that everyone hopes to eventually cross, but for now exists only as a moving target we’re all cautiously running toward. At a time when so many of us feel like we are still straddling two different worlds, how do we move back into unpredictable spaces with some sense of intention?

What are your thoughts about navigating social interactions now — things like weddings, dinner parties, or even just things like shopping?

Think about it as a gathering. Meaning specific moments in time that you're invited to, when you're actually going to meet people for a purpose. The way I think about it is like this: we are all guests and we are all hosts. And most of us are guests more often than we are hosts. So I could be hosting a breakfast meeting for other parents, and then I could also be attending meetings all day long as a guest. And each of those requirements when reemerging, whether you're deciding to host something or deciding to attend something, both of those roles benefit from intention.

So, ask yourself — should I go to this party? Should I go to this wedding? At some level, there's a set of philosophical questions, or a set of practical questions. I think the philosophical one is like, Who are my people now? Who do I want them to be? Who or what did I long for and miss?


So part of feeling good out in the world again has to do with just cutting out the things that aren’t important or meaningful.

Yes. We talk about information diets a lot — what do I want to read? We talk about nutrition diets — what do I want to eat? But I think there's also gathering diets. What do I really want to experience right now? As we reenter collective society, particularly when our social muscles have atrophied, this is important. Actually pause and ask yourself this. Take things easily and slowly. How do I want to engage with the world right now, and with whom? How many events feel right, right now, per week.

I deeply believe that for both hosts and guests, the more intentional we are about why we are bringing people together (and we communicate that), the easier it is to be able to say yes or no. And then when we do walk in, there's less anxiety because you have clearly chosen that you want to be there. There's less of a need to fake it till you make it. Also, we haven't used our bodies to gather in a very long time. And so we need practice. We've all just been bobbing heads on computers, so maybe you meet in a public park before you start going to other people’s homes again. The important thing is about really practicing and being intentional about moving through space.


Do you think that the way that we all choose to interact with each other, or the way groups interact now, will be radically different because of this time in history we’ve all just experienced?

I think that the idea of the individual navigating group life is as old as time. And I think that groups and communities are the creation of a set of individuals who want to come together for a higher purpose. And I think that we have an unusual opportunity right now to really ask questions around what and why and when we should meet, and in what form? I think group life will continue and we will always have the same forces that we see now, both negative and positive. But I think we have a rare window into how so much of our society functions, or has been implicitly or explicitly designed — economically, racially, culturally, and also in our everyday lives. So much has been revealed over the last year or so. We have an opportunity in many of our communities to listen to ourselves and where our energy feels excited and where it does not. We have an opportunity to listen to the many voices that have been pointing out the truth, a truth that we didn't want to necessarily see before it was made unignorable by the pandemic.

In conflict resolution we have a term called re-entry. And I think right now we're in a moment of collective re-entry. Done well, re-entry can be a transformative experience. It’s an opportunity to make meaning out of something that has happened. You reflect back and look at what transpired here. What did we learn? What happened here? What do I want to bring forward? What do I want to leave behind? I think we also just need to be kind and gentle with one another. We're all going to experience what I call micro moments of rejection — whether that's leaning in for an elbow bump and someone leans back out, or maybe it's inviting someone to come over for dinner and they're like, “Ah, I'm not really ready yet.” We must have grace with that. It’s a complicated time for everyone. Just remember that, like you, most people are just trying their best.