“With some communities in rebooted lockdown conditions and movement restricted everywhere else, no one is posting pictures of their sourdough. Zoom cocktail parties have lost their novelty, Netflix can only release so many new series. The news seems worse every day, yet we compulsively scroll through it. We get distracted by social media, yet have a pile of books unread. We keep meaning to go outside but somehow never find the time. We’re bored, listless, afraid and uncertain.” – Jonathan L. Zecher, author of Acedia: the lost name for the emotion we’re all feeling right now.

That’s right, friends; some of us are probably struggling with acedia as we go months into the pandemic. Acedia is an emotion that was described in the early 5th century within a Christian monastic context, but it is very much alive in our secular world too, especially now. While it is hard to pinpoint the exact emotion, loosely, it is said to be a combination of feeling listless, restless, afraid and uncertain. Let’s explore what acedia really is, how it might afflict us, and how we can lovingly attend to it.

Meet Your Practice Leader

Nomali Perera, MA, PCC, has been in the field of leadership development coaching, facilitation and teaching since 2007. Nomali is a trained facilitator of the Immunity to Change™ process, a Master Coach at Life XT and a certified Integral Master Coach through Integral Coaching Canada. Nomali has also been a professional consultant in people development and training in Brazil and Mexico. She currently lives in Boulder, Colorado.