Some of us have completed one or two weeks of social distancing and staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic restrictions. For those of us who were going out daily to a job, school, and/or other responsibilities, I wonder how many of us ever longed for time to “just chill at home”? No, this isn’t what anyone meant...but here we are.
One thing I am being challenged by during this time is being in “learner’s mind”. I have prided myself with being ‘on top of things’ that I do on a regular basis. I don’t mean to imply that I managed everything perfectly, by no means. I just mean that I was on a kind of autopilot about certain areas of my life; I knew how to manage them without much extra thought or concern.
Well, that’s changed dramatically. I am being challenged to do things differently; we all are. Daily I am confronted with “hm…that’s not going to work!”, or “…wow, how am I going to do that!?” or “…I really need to learn a new way to manage that!”, from how I do my work, to how I structure my personal time. It is a series of learning curves. I must keep reminding myself that it makes sense, it’s learner’s mind. I am creating new ways in many areas of my life. It will feel that I am “not doing it right”. I am running into issues I don’t know how to overcome. I even feel more tired earlier than I used to. I have been through rough times, had to develop new habits and faced uncertainty, but I’ve never had to restructure everything about my life to this degree, indefinitely.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never lived in the time of a pandemic before!
It is early days. Pacing is going to be necessary. Patience is going to be critical. Compassion and perspective are going to be invaluable. We are all being called to learn and use practices to help sustain ourselves, maybe even thrive in ways we haven’t before, through this challenge. See what you can do to create that for yourself.
Here are a few resources that might help you do that:
Meditation apps you might enjoy-
Insight Timer
Liberate Meditation
Relaxation and sleep apps that might be useful-
Calm Sleep Sounds Okay, that's all for now. But, look out for another installment mid-week. Take care everyone!