How to surf the Corona waves
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf ”
For me, this quote sums up perfectly the learning curve that’s been taking place for me and many of my clients this year. It is an excellent description of the mindset we must adopt, if we are going to get through the rest of 2020, or even the next year, with sanity and good humour.
2020 has been bringing ‘waves’ thick and fast. From Covid’s first tidal wave and lockdown, to constant waves of new restrictions and uncertainty, plus a well overdue civil rights movement.
I don’t know about you but just as I think I’m finding my feet and everything is settling down, another wave of restrictions or emotions threatens to knock me over.
It seems the external waves of uncertainty and restrictions cause conscious and unconscious internal waves of emotion inside every one of us, which then ripple out and are felt by our family, friends and communities.
Every time a restriction is lifted or a new one imposed I feel a range of emotions, sometimes I’m flooded by them.
Sometimes it’s relief, then a burst of ideas and desires, closely followed by the fear that it could change again, or delayed anger that the rule even existed in the first place.
At other times I experience anger and frustration, (often fear in disguise) because I believe that a) my income is at risk, b)my health/families health is at risk, or c) my kids are going to be staying home for the foreseeable future!
You can add your own d or e as appropriate!
These waves and ripples of emotion mean that we are not only affected by what is happening to us, but we often experience the waves of other people's emotions, which can be really draining.
I observe and feel these ripples coming from my family, friends and even in the atmosphere in my village. It can be in the flurry of WhatsApp messages about the most recent changes, angry/fear mongering posts on facebook groups, tears of relief and happiness seeing friends for the first time post lockdown, my children’s meltdowns / extreme excitement, or in the instagram posts celebrating the joy of regaining freedom and spending time in nature.
It’s been a flipping hard year so far, but we can learn to surf, in fact we owe it to ourselves to try and if we fall off the board, we must get back on, because the waves aren’t stopping any time soon.
My guide to surfing success (no board required)
Express gratitude
I am a regular writer of a gratitude list. Every morning I acknowledge the people, places, opportunities and things that I appreciate. This has been really helpful in stopping me from drowning in self pity some days and then hating myself for being ungrateful.
Expressing gratitude helps you to identify what’s important. If every day you write that you are grateful to be able to work from home or to be able to go to the forest for a walk, you will start to know yourself better and you can begin to let go of things that aren’t important.
I suggest writing a list of 5 to 10 things that you are grateful for every morning as soon as you can.
Top tip - don’t write down things you think you should be grateful for, write down things you really are grateful for.
2. Acknowledge feelings
Quite often I am so busy working, being a parent, doing things, trying to get things done that I’m not aware of my feelings, I use meditation to connect each morning and acknowledge how I feel, but I know that many of my friends and clients don’t and instead they fall from one day into the next, bashed by the waves of their emotions, reacting with anger, frustration and not even knowing where it came from or pinning the blame for it on a person, place or thing that is not actually the real source.
I would advise checking in with your feelings a couple of times a day and just saying to yourself in your head, or writing it down, ‘right now I feel…’ It may sound a bit silly, but you’d be surprised how strong our feelings may be and we are just trying to push them down and ignore them without awareness. You could even ask yourself ‘why?’
3. Permission to Grieve
I have also been making an effort to give myself permission to grieve for what I have lost this year and what I expect I will lose in the coming months.
Grief, as a feeling, isn’t just for the really big losses. I’m very fortunate not to have lost a loved one this year, but it is also for the other things that we may not have given ourselves permission to grieve for, because we don't see them as ‘worthy’
My biggest losses this year have been not being able to visit my family in Lithuania, having my freedom restricted, losing business, losing over two months in lockdown and not being able to plan ahead. I have had an emotional response to all of them.
In the grand scheme of things these may not seem enormous, but they really matter. Losing part of your routine, lifestyle or future plans, that you’d really pinned your hopes on, hurts.
You can be upset for two days that your drink with a friend had to be cancelled, there’s no scale about how you are allowed to feel or what feelings are valid.
Again it just goes to show what’s important to you and when you feel your life is already restricted and upside down, every small disappointment hurts more in my experience.
The first step to grieving for me has been acknowledging how I’m feeling and then finding a safe way to express my feelings. If you can’t identify or express how you feel it can be very hard to move on, you could become trapped in feeling low, angry and being very reactive.
4. Start before you’re ready
Since the start of the year many of us have had new ideas about how we could earn money, improve our health, our living conditions, but we’ve told ourselves we can’t start, because of x,y or z. My advice is start anyway. It may not be the beginning you’d planned, it may be slower, there may be more mistakes, but there will be progress. Not starting has a 0% success rate, whereas starting will definitely have a higher success rate and you will be learning from any setbacks. When lockdown hit, I was not ready to teach fitness online. I hate being in front of the camera, I’d never done it before, I didn’t have the right equipment, I didn’t have good lighting or sound. I didn’t know how to market the classes, I didn’t know what to charge, but I started anyway and thank goodness I did. I’ve learnt so much. I’ve been able to refine my coaching style, strategy and really commit professionally to my belief that we should exercise daily.
Whatever it is you want or need to do, just take one action towards it daily. The right time to start is now.
5. Be flexible
Now is not the time to be rigid and narrow minded. When I am rigid in my ideas I usually end up angry and disappointed. Sometimes accepting that things haven’t gone my way takes time, it’s not my strongest skill, but it gets better with practice and I feel better quicker and usually find a solution once I’ve accepted the reality, even if I don’t like it..
Work out what you can control and what you can’t and then expect that you may have to change your plans, don’t get stuck on one idea. This leads neatly on to...
6. Have a plan B
In an ideal world the kids will go back to school, covid-19 will be eradicated by a vaccine, we will be able to travel, work flexibly, if we want to, hug our friends again and have everything just as we want it, predictable and safe.
This is plan A.
Given the year so far, I’m not pinning my hopes on it.
I’m working on a plan B, for the aspects that cause me the most stress. At the moment these are, schools staying closed and not having any work. I want to be prepared, not panicked, and still feel some sense of control (most of us hate feeling out of control and helpless).
With this in mind, I’ve started at home. Rather than saying - “I don’t know what I'll do if the kids don’t go back to school!” I’ve given the playroom a makeover, so it’s ready for homeschooling if needed.
I am also clearing the house of clutter, so that if I need to isolate (or even if I don’t) it is a calmer space to be in. I have a list of jobs and a list of benefits of being at home if we need to quarantine again and I am focusing on the parts of my business that don’t require face to face contact.
Be realistic about what you will do if your hopes don’t pan out, so that you don’t need to cling to them.
Take action, don’t just think about it. Speak to someone helpful (pick wisely) if you want advice, but again, small actions each day. Don’t just wait for this to all be over, life is now.
Try writing down your biggest Covid fears and then you can start to tackle them. They will lose some of their power just by being on paper.
7. Ask for help
If you are in a tight financial position, struggling at home with the intensity of your kids, need to improve your health, feeling scared, or miserable, but you don’t know what to do, reach out.
Call a helpline, or a trusted friend. Ask your bank what they can do, contact school and ask if they can help. Be honest about what you need. I have felt very alone at times, financially scared, worried for my health, but speaking to someone or even writing it down helps. Acknowledging the worry exists, really is the first step to feeling better and improving the situation.
If you found this post helpful, I’d love to hear your feedback or how you are applying the surf tips in your life.
I’ve always thought I’d like surfing, I just didn’t imagine I’d be learning during a global pandemic, without the ocean or a surfboard!
Good luck, let’s go ride the waves! *
*sorry for the surfing dad puns/jokes, it’s been a long summer!
