Covid, Season Three

Not surprisingly, Covid was renewed for a third season. While I don’t think we will ever have any form of a lock down again, I do think many of us compassionate and responsible folks will be spending a lot of time at home, again.

Given we did all the things they told us to do for self care about a year and a half ago, I don’t think the tried and true are going to help. It’s really hard to journal your way out of the anxiety that comes with 800,000 people dying in such a short time. It’s even more impossible for Zoom happy hours to fix the sadness that comes with watching so many lives ruined by police brutality and racism. So what do we do?

I don’t have the answers, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed myself. But I’m about solutions, so I’d like to offer some.

Therapy

I am a huge advocate of therapy. Professional help in such serious times is so so critical to maintaining good mental health. I do realize therapy is a privilege not everyone can afford. There are resources to help (and again, I realize these aren’t possible for everyone). Check in with your company about FREE or insurance covered option. Check out local colleges and universities who offer the same from students studying to be therapists. There are also community resources for free specifically for at risk and youth persons. If you’re a healthcare worker, many app services are offering free or low cost support. It may take some researching, but there are options.

Get Outside

This has been huge for me. Get outside. Sit, walk, run, hike - whatever level of activity you can engage in, do it. The sunshine, smells and natural environment will help ground you. If you’re in a city, is there a park you can walk to? Can you take public transportation or drive to somewhere that does have nature? Can you put some headphones on with a podcast and sit on your balcony? Whatever small amount of outside time you can get, take it.

Turn off Electronics

Get offline. Log off social media. Turn off the TV. There are so many stimulants lately between news and social media and the news is not always good. Shut it all off. Grab a book, color, paint, listen to music, talk to a friend, walk, drink water, disengage from the madness and find ways to reconnect with tangible things or people.

Spend Time with Loved Ones

If you’ve got a quaranteam, meetup with them (safely). Being able to talk and spend time with the people who fill up your joy is so important during this time. If you can do it while walking, cooking a meal, or something else that keeps you off your electronics - do that!

What are you doing to stay sane in year three?

Be Easy

These last two weeks of shelter in place have been the most difficult for me. I’ve been amplifying my insecurities and it’s greatly affected my anxious thoughts. Turns out, I’m far from the only one in this mental space.

I struggle when I don’t have a goal to attain. At work, at home - I need to set goals and timelines for achieving them. The thing is, COVID19 don’t care about my driven lifestyle.

At work, I’m lucky to have a job. My company, my team, and myself — we are focused on adjusting the way we do business and how to continue to be a profitable company in 2020. The same promotion, raises, big bonuses — those are less of a guarantee and more of a, hope 2021 sees us in a stronger place. Ya’ll know I am career oriented. Too much so. I hold myself to extremely high standards and having an entire year where there isn’t really a huge goal to meet is hard.

In my career I feel stuck. I feel scared. I am struggling to stay focused due to the fact that I am deeply empathetic and the troubles of the world are something I am carrying each day. My high standards of excellence are showing in the way I am beating myself up over not being where I think I should be in my career. In reality, I am at a world class company, with incredible pay and benefits and I am thriving. Not only that, I have a side hustle that let’s me do what I’m most passionate about — write! Not only am I doing just fine, I am excelling.

At home, I am healthy. I have food, shelter, and I spend an entirely unnecessary amount on Amazon finds I don’t need. But my insecurities are screaming about my body (If Adele has a flawless bod I should too!), my savings (Come on why don’t you have a cool mil in the bank!?), and my productivity (haven’t reorganized the entire apartment yet, lazy B!). Realistically I workout at least an hour everyday, I’m saving and have strong financial security right now, and I’ve picked up a few projects here and there. I’m thriving.

Life is ridiculous right now. Truly, there’s never ever been a time like this. Millions are out of work. Families are losing homes, unable to feed themselves. I don’t know what asshole decided that because an elite privileged few of us have the time and resources we should come out of this with a perfect body, $10M, and a new startup. But that’s absurd. Whatever you need to do to survive, do that. And accept yourself and others for whatever that looks like.

I’m not saying don’t go out and takeover the world and come out of this your best self. If you have the ability to do that, rock on! But stop holding others to that standard. Recognize how privileged you are to have the resources to build that empire and build your best bod.

For a lot of us, surviving this time is the best way to thrive. My therapist offered up a goal to me of maintaining balance, conquering my insomnia and just being kinder to myself. For me, that’s a lot to tackle and if I can even get a grip on one of those I’ll consider this time a success.

Some days I work out two hours, create a gallery wall, cook a fancy meal and join 6 meetings. Some days I walk for an hour, watch 6 episodes of Outer Banks and order in. Both days are valuable.

Figure out what you need each day to find happiness. To feel good. To survive.

Be easy on yourself. This is truly an unprecedented time in history and I’m not sure it’s going to define you long term if you don’t become an SI swimsuit model with a successful Fortune 500 company who read 36 books, built a home from scratch and figured out how to master French cuisine.

I’ll say it now - I consider myself relatively successful in the grand scheme and I don’t think I’m going to achieve any of those things. But bet in the future you’ll continue to see me be a force of nature in every single thing I choose to do.