“Focus on the good.”
There is this sudden need to always ask whoever you speak to now ‘how are you?’ because the emerge of Covid-19 has got everyone appreciating people and thankful for the people they have around them. There’s a wave of people feeling the need to ‘touch base’ with people they hardly spoke to before the pandemic and the few people that now make sure they start every email or message with ‘I hope you’re well’ added with 'stay safe' or 'keep safe.' The sadden lose that we have seen happening over these last few months has put the world to a stop and for many suffering significant change of life that will never return back to normal.
And in light of Mental Health Week coming up, I thought just as it is important to ask everyone else ‘how are you?’ what about asking yourself ‘how are you?’ Sounds weird right? But have you actually sat down and done a mental check-in with yourself? We live in such a society that works on ‘life goes on’ or ‘keeping going’ and it’s easy to get into the rut of this new life that we have now created but reality is life before this pandemic will soon be a myth.
And that is why it is important to ask ourselves how we are because in all this chaos of life now we need a better understanding of our minds above all. The world can ask a lot from us but maybe now it's time to ask yourself what makes you feel good, and what doesn’t make you feel good? We move so fast in and out of our everyday routine that do we recognise what is going on inside ourselves? We grow up to loose the importance of what makes us feel good because our control of our attention is taken out our hands but let's think now, where do you want your attention placed? Forget the external perception of success or the external expectation, use your emotional intelligence to know what is right for you?
The fast pace development of fear and anxiety around what is currently happening and what will happen next for us all and then having social distancing doesn’t help. And I can imagine this social distance has got a lot of people facing their demons that life before the pandemic kept them safe (busy!) from.
Who looks back at something that happened in February this year and feels like that was years ago? Those days when we saw our family, friends and colleagues. When we went on buses, trains and tubes; how we used to push for our seat and stood so close to the edge of the platform so that we didn’t miss the next tube coming in. When we went to the office, a restaurant, a bar, a club, a shopping centre or to the cinema. And leaving the best to last, when we went to the airport excited for our holiday…. Oh, the memories of normal life!
And even though we are all in the same boat, we are all effected and dealing with this all in our own ways right? Some may be worried about their health and their family’s health. Some may be struggling with their household, their job and adapting to the life of work from home, some may struggle with their financial stability or even the general impact of isolation, feeling lonely and not being able to socialise. Some may feel suffocated and trapped in a place where they are meant to be safe, whilst others may feel free from their hectic lifestyle. Some may use productivity as their escape of dealing with their reality, whilst others may have realised how much the small and simple things really are the important things in their life.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) one thing that has been spoken about recently is the increase of alcoholism; that odd social drink becoming the daily drink without realising maybe? It is important to be kind to ourselves in these times, but do we be that kind that we forget our self-satisfaction boundaries?
The outbreak for physical distancing has definitely increased the digital technology world, for things like keeping in touch with each other. It comes to light at times like this how far our technology world has come; as if it was not for our super development of digital technology maybe this Lockdown would not have been as productive as it has been for some people. The advantage of being able to remotely work and have virtual meetings, the new talk of ‘let’s have a zoom or Skype call tonight’ to then being able to home-school, or enrol onto an online course and and then the YouTube world of ‘how to cook this or that.’ The positive light of digital technology has let us embrace some normality and allowed contact between each other and maybe even got us getting creative but most of all it can let us explore the opportunities we have and want to gain in this time.
As well as digital technology, the Lockdown has done one thing for sure and that is awakened the local community solidarity. The local community and neighbourhood who were once strangers have now become a new family and support network for some. There have been changes that have happened in a whole month that haven’t happened in a whole decade and maybe this is because of the risk factor but it sure shows that things are possible when they are really needed.
No matter how much the days roll into one and we plod along with the Lockdown days, it is important to make sure we keep on top of our wellbeing. Everyone around you is in the same struggle, maybe different to yours but still in a struggle so let’s together hold each other up and get through this madness.
But in all this remember to be you; focus on what matters to you and I meant what really matters to you? Be honest with yourself, understand what you feel, let yourself hear your voice and emotions and then manage and deal with what you realise you feel. Be kind to yourself, keep up exercise whether it’s a workout or even an outburst of dancing around the living room, listen to good music or podcasts, keep up your one hour outdoor walk a day, have a good sleep pattern, healthy diet, find a hobby whether its reading drawing baking or cooking, consider meditation, keep talking to people and keep in contact with people and most of all remember we will see the light at the end of this tragic time.
