As we step into yet another round of pandemic restrictions, exhaustion … frustration … loss … grief … discouragement … hopelessness … anger… and sadness are common feelings. It might feel increasingly difficult to connect with the resilience within us.
But it is there … You’ve got this.
One Moment at a Time
The airline industry tells us to “put your own oxygen mask on first”. They believe it ensures we have the mental and physical capacity to take care of others. We are friends, we are family, we work … we have roles to fill in this world where we give our energy to others. It’s important to nurture our own supply as well.
At night, take a little time and connect with yourself. How are you doing? Are your basic needs being met? How are you eating? Sleeping? How are you doing emotionally? Our counselling team is here if you feel you might need a space to process your feelings.
Choose a moment for yourself for the next day. Is it getting up a little earlier to have a quiet coffee to yourself? Is it figuring out when you can go for a walk and give yourself some fresh air? Deciding to take 15 minutes to talk to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while?
It doesn’t matter what your version of that moment is… choose it… make an actual plan for it to happen. Not as an intention but as a plan (that is the important part).
Now we can talk about our kids. Again, they are losing, school, sports, playing with their friends. Hopefully not for a long time. But the “back to normal” that we have been working toward seems to feel anything but normal. So here we are… here we land, wondering what to do… again.
Choose a moment in your child’s day to give something back to them. Anything. It’s easy to forget with all the game systems and toys out there that what they really want and need is connection (which incidentally doesn’t change as we become adults). We continue to need and cherish those moments where we feel connected to others. Moments add up, they build on each other and become the picture we see, the relationships we experience.
Moments
A morning or bedtime snuggle
Movie night with popcorn
Campout in the living room with hot chocolate and sleeping bags
Play a game
Hold hands
Make handprint art to hang on the wall. Hey! Why not dedicate a whole wall to pandemic art?
Read books together, share the couch and read your own books together.
Every family, every relationship is different. Moments for one may be entirely different for another. The point is to take a few minutes a day to inject something back into yourself and those you love.
One Moment at a Time