Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

self-care

A Pandemic Is Not A Snowstorm

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Those middle-of-the-night epiphanies? If you can remember them – which is always a big “if” – they often don’t have the same resonance in the daylight that they carried in the wee small hours of the night.

Last night I had a clarity awakening and this morning – surprise of surprises – it still felt true.

I realized that I have been treating this pandemic like it’s a blizzard. I’ve been enduring and waiting.

You know, like you spend time wondering and betting how many inches or feet you’re going to get. You wait for the snowfall to slow down so you can shovel the sidewalks. You wait for the snowplows to get to your street. You bake brownies and cookies and cakes, thinking that you’re living time out of time so none of the indulgences will actually count.

But this pandemic is not like a blizzard. Not at all.

Enduring and waiting has only made me frustrated, anxious and mad.

No, what’s happening now is a total shift in the way I live today and will live for the foreseeable future. A client who works in a big company says they are planning to have to deal with this virus and its impact at least until June, 2021.

June. 2021.

So what I need to do for myself is wrap my arms around the is-ness of this new life.

Which means I need to embrace the necessity of exercising at home, and the non-negotiable need I have to take a brisk walk every day.

I need to eat smaller portions because I’m using fewer calories.

I need to drink less alcohol because as I mentioned *calories* and if you don’t really know what day it is, how can you keep track of how many glasses of wine you’ve had?

Taking care with my schedule is even more important because it creates guideposts for the day.

If I can create something everyday – intentional creativity – I will grow an important part of my brain.

Connecting with family and friends routinely rather than happenstance-ly will ease my loneliness.

Prioritizing my rest, keeping my environment tidy, dressing the way I want to dress that day (and showering, let’s not forget that) are things I can do to ensure a good quality of life.

And, helping others is a thing I will always do. If I’m running to CVS to pick up a prescription or to the grocery store every other week, you know I’ll be reaching out to neighbors to see if they need something.

My new normal is markedly different from my very-recent normal in that I’m no longer enduring, no longer waiting.

I’m living. I’m improving. I’m learning. I’m growing. I’m helping.

All within a container that is safe for me, and safe for you, and safe for all of us.

Hell of an epiphany, huh?

 

Plenty for Everyone

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Let’s say you feel frustrated and unhappy and can’t really put your finger on the “why” of it. Let’s also say that you’re someone who’s always putting the needs of other people ahead of your own, but you wouldn’t call it that. You’d call it “doing what I’m supposed to be doing” or “what I have to do right now”. Or “love”.

But there’s that niggling frustration, every single day. The sense that there’s something you’re not doing that you could be doing. Something that would be delightful and fun. Nourishing even. You just can’t see a way to do that AND do the thing you’re supposed to be doing.

So, let me ask you this:

If you went on a picnic with three of the dearest people in your life, and you opened the picnic basket and there were only three sandwiches, what would you do?

Would you say, “Oh, it’s okay. I love you so much and want you to be fed and happy, so eat the sandwiches. I’ll just sit here and pass you the mustard and a napkin and anything else you need.”

Would you squish down your own hunger so the hunger of others could be satisfied?

(Plenty of us do this every single day. We do it because we have heard that parenting, partnering, working, or serving needs to look a very specific way. We let that strict definition shape a box that’s increasingly smaller and harder to live in.)

(And sometimes we live inside the teeny tiny box because we’re not sure who we would be outside of it. We’re not sure if we’re exactly comfortable with how big we might become if we were to step outside.)

(And, then again, we worry that the person who’s not having a whole sandwich because of our needs might be mad or resentful. That’s awkward, uncomfortable and possibly fatal to the relationship.)

(And we are doing this in the first place because relationships with others are so important. More important, in fact, than our relationship with ourselves.)

(And we might have learned that love looks like doing stuff for other people all the time, regardless of the impact on ourselves.)

Back to the picnic scenario. You’re hungry and there aren’t enough sandwiches. Your gut says to let other people have what is there because it’s appropriate, it’s right, it’s safe. But you’re starving, aren’t you?

Might you consider a simple solution of dividing each sandwich into four equal parts so that everyone could have some? So everyone could be nourished? Including you?

It’s time to ease your frustration and own your right to your own well-being, my friends. And while asking for your portion might be scary, the odds are it will turn out beautifully. Because I know for a fact that the three people you love most in the world want nothing more than to share their sandwich with you.

Because they love you just as much as you love them.

 

[This piece appeared first on my Facebook page. Are we connected there?]

Time To Play Hooky

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relax footI know how stressed you are. I really do.

I know how completely you throw yourself into everything you do and how chaotic things can get.

Let’s face it, friend. You’re exhausted.

Putting one heavy foot in front of the other,  day after frazzled day in a frenzied, numbing march toward something you’re not even sure about any more – that’s you.

So. There’s really only one thing I can recommend.

It’s a little thing and, at the same time, it’s a really big thing.

Take a day off.

Really.

One day off. You don’t do it enough, do you?

(Do you do it ever?)

Yes, what I’m talking about is playing hooky.

As odd as it may seem to all of us Type-A, hard chargers, when you play hooky, you don’t do any work.

Don’t do laundry.

Don’t shop for groceries.

Don’t drive anyone anywhere.

Don’t do anything that needs to be done.

Instead, you take a whole day. Off.

(The very idea of it feels so free and “can I really get away it it?”-ish, doesn’t it?)

OK, maybe it’s been so long since you’ve played hooky that you can’t remember what to do with a whole day to yourself. So let me give you some suggestions:

Turn off your phone and leave your computer un-booted.

Take a walk and don’t pay any attention to how many steps you’re getting in.

Read a book cover-to-cover.

Wade barefoot in a creek.

Hit golf balls at the driving range – not to work on your game, but just to watch the way the balls arc through the air.

Give a dog’s belly a thorough rub.

Take a nap.

Take two naps, even.

Eat a ripe peach over the sink and let the juice dribble down your chin.

Call a friend you haven’t talked with in a while and catch up.

Meander.

Loaf.

Take deep breaths.

And, really and truly relax.

I promise you that everything on your to-do list will be there tomorrow. The world won’t end if you take a day for yourself.

I’ll bet you, in fact, that you come back to your to-do list with a renewed sense of energy and purpose, simply because you’re not so flipping exhausted.

One day. Just one.

Twenty-four hours for you to do… nothing.

If that doesn’t sound like bliss, I don’t know what does.

So, what do you say? How about tomorrow?