What was your life like before Covid? Some people I know had very structured lives. My neighbour (who has just celebrated her 99th birthday and is my inspiration for my old age!) had a very full calendar of social events – including going to the local church to serve tea to the old people (Yes, really!) and being part of the local amateur dramatics society.
She had her next trip to South Africa to visit her son planned and booked and life was trundling along in a very orderly and happy fashion.
Covid had a huge effect on her everyday life. Her calendar was empty, she wasn’t able to get out and see people, she felt trapped and isolated in her own home and was so grateful for a phone call from her family and friends.
Thankfully, she has a great attitude to life (which explains her longevity I believe) and she decided to take up some indoor hobbies. She became a jigsaw puzzle aficionado and worked her way through a pile of puzzle books as well as discovering programs on the Discovery channel that kept her occupied. She also mastered her Facetime skills , enabling her to keep in touch with her family and friends.
She always said that she was so glad she didn’t have small children to worry about and how she felt sorry for those families with children cooped up at home. This helped her keep her own situation in perspective – always a good way to tell a better story about our lives. (Something Amanda and I actively encourage for our Conscious Creators).
Her perspective on life helped her get through it in the best possible way and, as the world is now getting back to some kind of ‘normal’, she has enthusiastically regained some of her old activities and realised that there are some she is willing to say goodbye to forever, thinking of with fond memories.
I also know other people who lived “hamster wheel” lives. Life was a constant race to beat the alarm clock, sort the kids out, catch the train, grab a coffee, get into the office, work late, squash onto the train home again, throw a dinner together, shout at the kids to do their homework, put a load of washing on, iron the school shirts, collapse on the sofa for half hour, grunt at their partner and fall into bed again ready to start again tomorrow. And breathe…..
For them, Covid turned their life upside down. Suddenly, they’re working from home, in their PJ’s with a commute from their bed to their laptop. For some, home-schooling created a different kind of challenge. Suddenly, they’re cooped up at home having to become teachers overnight, managing pent-up energy – their own and the kids – and getting to grips with Zoom meetings and remote working – no more water cooler chats! For many this changed the dynamics of their family relationships – some for the good and some not so.
For some, like me, who have been working online, from home, for a long time, life carried on pretty much as it was on a day-to-day basis. And, of course, for all the key- workers, working life continued but with even more pressure than before, for many. I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of you of the commitment our NHS staff and others showed to their jobs and the people impacted by them. We were all given the opportunity to show our gratitude and respect and we did. However, has that gratitude and respect continued or are we back to complaining how ‘broken’ the system is? The people who work in those jobs are the same people now as they were when the pandemic was at its height. In my opinion, they still deserve our gratitude and respect, even if the establishment is broken. What do you think?
And for all of us, the hardest thing was being separated from our loved ones and friends for prolonged periods. Irrespective of our daily lives, this impacted us all.
We heard people say “I can’t wait to get back to normal”. And others say “I never want to go back to how life was before Covid”.
Much as a global pandemic rocked everybody’s world to some degree or another, I don’t think any of us experienced it without a level of reflection and re-evaluation of life.
How was it for you? Did you just want to get your life back to whatever ‘normal’ is? Or did it make you think about how you might like to change things in your life – whether that be the type of coffee you drink, to “I want to move house/country, change job/partner?!”
We found that some people had the realisation that they were just ‘settling’ in life; making do with things that are OK but not really as they want them to be. The worst of the pandemic brought people up with a start, recognising the old cliche that ‘life is too short’ and this is an opportunity to take some time to reflect on what they really want.
One of the things that Amanda and I were very grateful to have are the various tools we personally use – and share with our clients – that help us process these situations and deal with them from a place of potential and possibilities. Two of these tools are meditation and visualisation; and we know that many people became willing to explore these practices that they would have never considered before, discovering the benefits of quieting the mind and taking control of their thoughts.
In case you’re not familiar with the difference taking up these practices can make, here’s a short – and not exhaustive – list:
MEDITATION
- Calms the mind and the body
- Reduces anxiety and stress
- Reduces and eliminates pain
- Enables better decision making
- Helps us cope with difficult situations and rise above conflicts
- Helps us be present in the ‘now’ rather than dwelling in the past that we cannot change or in the future that isn’t here yet
- Widens our perspective and opens our mind to possibilities and choice
VISUALISATION
- Helps us achieve more than our limited thinking allows (highly successful athletes use visualisation all the time to smash through targets)
- Conditions your brain to hear, see and feel success in your mind
- Prepares us for situations, teaching us how to respond before things happen
- Enables us to create our life experience just the way we want it
There is more power in these two very simple, but super-effective tools than can be put in writing here. If you would like to learn more about how to implement these into your life so you can become the Conscious Creator of your future please reach out – we’d love to hear from you. Please go to our website www.liveaconsciouslife.com to download our FREE ‘Authentic Self’ meditation.
Amanda and I have created the Conscious Creators app which is jam-packed with learning, development, tools, resources, inspiration and support. We are delighted by the response we are getting to this ‘coach in your pocket’. We absolutely know that the journey we have been on has prepared us to deal with whatever life throws at us – even global pandemics – and our aim is to share these resources with the world so more and more people can become the conscious creators of their life to joyful freedom! Please go to our website www.liveaconsciouslife.com to find out how to join us. We’d love to see you there.
P.S. I just heard that my 99-year old neighbour went to another neighbour’s birthday barn dance on Saturday, dressed in jeans and a red cowboy hat and boots and was dancing along with the best of them!!! Go girl!! She certainly knows how to live a life of joyful freedom and is proof that age is no barrier. True inspiration!
By Conscious Living
Amanda & Kathy
