It’s January 2021 and we’ve now had over a year of a global pandemic and 8 months or so of huge changes (often every day) here in the UK. There is no New Year, New You this year – who the feck can even muster the energy for reading one of those posts anyway!
There’s just soooo much NEWS out there, demanding your attention. I binge-watched ‘Traces’ on iplayer the other day, missed the entire storming of the Capitol Building in the States by Trumpists. There’s soooo much for you to be doing right now, Everything is demanding your attention. Home-schooling and trying to fit in some work from home as your employer is one of the 70% refusing furlough requests from working mums. Dealing with lost clients. Dealing with lost loved ones. Worrying about loved ones sick with covid-19. Trying not to argue with your partner over their loud voice on Zoom calls. Having no one around you that you can just hug, just for five minutes.
Fuck, just writing out that list is exhausting! You, me, a lot of us are living it! How do you keep going through all of this? I don’t have a perfect answer and any one of my peers that says they have is frankly full of shit. What I can offer is some things I try to do as suggestions to you.
To help you take a breath, to help you focus, to help you relax, to just help you.
- Don’t pick up your phone as soon as you wake up. Jaysus, this one is hard for me but I’m trying! No, I haven’t replaced my phone alarm with my actual alarm yet. But, I’m doing my best. Alarm off then putting.the.phone.down.again. and attempting to not pick it up again until I use it for meditation, at least half an hour after waking up.
- Unclench your jaw – several yogis have said this over the years but it’s only in the last few months that I’ve started to actively recognise how clenched up my jaw is when I’m in front of the computer all day. Open your mouth, smile, pretend to yawn, pretend to chew, sing or shout for a couple of minutes.
- Get.outside – even if it’s just sitting on your front steps for ten minutes. Today’s the first day I’ve not been able to go for a walk (it’s peeing it down here!) so I opened up the front door and watched the trees sway for a few minutes. Any kind of nature is good for you.
There you go, just 3 things – comment below or on my twitter or IG if you’re managing any of these.
p.s. I created the Susan Calendar this week and hereby give you all permission to use it. It’s not an actual thing, it’s an imaginary calendar that states the first week of January can start now, today and, according to the Susan Calendar, you can restart your 2021 whenever you want 🙂
