Never in a million years did I think my first blog post would revolve around a quarantine. Wild times, right?
Last week was my first ‘unofficial’ week living in this new normal. Our gyms were starting to close, so that part of my schedule felt a big shift. All of the things in my day-to-day that were normally in my control suddenly weren’t. As a type A person, I HATED this.
So last week, I felt like I had a big cloud over my head. I’ve been dealing with similar feelings of doom and gloom since losing my dad eighteen months ago, but this was the cherry on top of it all. Trips were being cancelled, get togethers and birthdays had to be postponed, and life was officially on pause. I was beyond frustrated and disappointed.
And what did I do? I leaned into it. I let myself feel it. I lived in sweats, ate like my college self, and I binge watched everything I could. (Shout out to Hulu for releasing the first three episodes of ‘Little Fires Everywhere.’ Really appreciate it.)
Sometimes we need to let ourselves feel whatever we’re feeling. Let it out. Could we be utilizing this time to be productive? Absolutely. But some days we might need to stay in our pj’s or take a three hour nap. We’re human and we need to give ourselves some grace. As with anything else, we can easily start to scroll on social media and see how productive others are being during this time, which can make us feel even worse. We can’t compare our days or feelings to anyone else, especially now.
Whether we want to admit it or not, the level of uncertainty we are facing creates some level of fear inside of each of us. It’s like a giant pause button has been pushed and everything is on hold, out of our control. We need to take this time to be kind to ourselves and take time when we need it, but also remember that our lives will resume and this is all temporary.
Once I allowed myself to feel what I was feeling, the dark cloud seemed to go away. I slowly but surely started to feel reinvigorated. Listening to my body was just what I needed.
So what did I do next? First, I took it day by day. I didn’t set some lofty goals for the next month or even week. I was hyper-aware of how I felt each day. I was kind to myself.
I wanted to establish some semblance of a routine to bring even the slightest feeling of normalcy back into my life, but knew I needed to start small. So I did some small things that I knew would be somewhat easy to complete: I made my bed, I did some laundry, I cleared out some emails. As soon as I felt that feeling of finishing a task, I knew I could begin to tackle bigger things.
So my advice for you? Take it day by day. Let yourself feel what you are feeling, but also know when it is time to turn the TV off, put the phone away, and get some stuff done.
That’s my two cents. What’s something you’re doing that’s making this “new normal” work for you? Let me know in the comments below.
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