Focusing the energy

This week, the funeral of a friend took place. Due to this wretched COVID-19 situation, I couldn’t actually attend but instead played a part with friends and family, by lining the route of the final journey my friend took. Understandably, the day was full of heightened emotions.

Emotions such as sadness, frustration, anger and disappointment are often described as ‘negative’ but that shouldn’t detract from the fact that they are valid emotions and need to be felt. People often say it isn’t healthy to feel those emotions and children are told not to be so angry and ‘don’t take your mood out on me’ but would we tell them to hide away their excitement, joy and happiness? Of course not, we positively encourage them to feel those emotions; in fact, we’ll do all we can to ensure they have those feelings. But the negative ones, not so much. We perhaps, maybe with good intentions, try to discourage them – tell...

All change

These are testing times. And the ramifications reach far and wide across every facet of our lives.

It’s challenging enough for adults to get their heads around what’s going on but how on earth are children and young people supposed to figure this all out in their heads – to try to make sense of it all?

They can’t see their friends (OK, with the easing of Lockdown, maybe you’re allowing them to see one friend at a time but how weird for them that they must remain two metres apart and depending on their age, can you trust them to do that?!), their education as they know it has come to a halt and a whole new way of learning has been introduced. They may have missed Prom, If they are GCSE or A Level students, maybe they worry about what will come of their grades. They cannot see extended family. All their clubs and activities have ceased to run and the simple pleasure of going to the park is no longer allowed.

If they are older, it’s...

To do or not to do…

With Lockdown easing there comes a change in behaviour. After seven weeks, people were bound to begin to feel a bit cooped up and with restrictions on where they could and couldn’t go having been so (understandably) strict, once those guidelines were altered (and some say lacking in clarification), is it any wonder that people were heading to beauty spots and beaches in their droves?

We had a dilemma in my house. My father-in-law lives on the coast, about an hour from us. He lives alone and has been going stir crazy during Lockdown. He’s a social fellow so has found the isolation very challenging. So, with the changing guidelines, we could go and see him. But could we? One person from one house could see another person from another house. So that meant we couldn’t all go and see him. Right? And as he lives on the coast, that’d be five of us trollying off to a coastal town and news articles had said tourism chiefs were urging...

Warm and cosy in our comfort zone

I’m currently studying for a qualification. There are seven assignments in total to write and I’m one down. Six to go. Good math eh? (Unsurprisingly, it is not a maths-related qualification…). 

Completing the first assignment took blood, sweat and tears. I haven’t written an assignment for ahem, almost quarter of a decade, so this was way out of my comfort zone. So, passing the first one meant cartwheels and yee-hahs – well, almost. Since then though, it feels like my subconscious brain has been like: “Well done Kirsty, you’ve proved to yourself you can write and pass an assignment. You’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt. So, shall we move on now?” And I haven’t done any further work towards a single assignment. Nothing. Nada. This is not good. 

For most people – bar the adventurous few – their brain doesn’t like change, nor being challenged – it...

Emotional vortex

A while ago, I posted a blog about how without realising it, we can misdirect our bad mood towards someone else. Now more than ever, I feel it might be helpful to re-visit this topic because I don’t know about you, but emotions in my house can run high at times during these strange strange times and that’s when it’s important to figure out what's at the root of it (obviously COVID-19 is the overarching issue but what is it specifically).

Sometimes, the person on the receiving end of our ire may not be completely innocent in the situation – maybe they know exactly how to press our buttons but quite possibly, their words or actions were what tipped us over the edge and all our wrath about something completely different, was aimed at them.

The situation we're in right now is surely a breeding ground for that kind of scenario to take place. There may be feelings of anxiety, frustration and disappointment and someone in the house does one little...

Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow

Here we go again… The alarm goes off and it’s the start of another day, except it feels like the same day, over and over again. A scene from the film Groundhog Day, or our lives right now during  COVID-19?

I recently watched Groundhog Day with my family and my interpretation of the film’s message is that it’s not what you think about that matters, it’s the way you think about what you think about – sounds very familiar to me….! The main character, self-centered TV weatherman Phil Conner, gets stuck in Groundhog Day and it seems interminable with no way out. A bit like the feeling many have right now…

Desperately seeking something

The way we feel on any given day, at any given moment is a direct result of how we interpret the incoming data – i.e. people, events and situations; we become aware of something, we process it, too often with unconscious thoughts and the direct result is our...

Choosing to do what you want to do and knowing why

It’s very easy to have a victim mindset about the situation we find ourselves in. COVID-19 is a lighthouse – an immoveable object and something we can do nothing about. It has resulted in an imposed lockdown and therefore, we might feel we’re a victim of our circumstances, behest to the way it all plays out. Not so…

We always live by our values – the things and people which we deem most important to us and right now, as ever, we are living true to our values. The choices we are making will be according to what sits emotionally comfortable with us because it fits with our values.

It’s what you value

If you are choosing to stay at home, it’s because you value your health and that of your family. Maybe it is because you place value on the advice given by the government and by key medical experts. Perhaps some of you are sceptics but on balance, you’re happier to heed their warnings.

If...

The normal rules do not apply

What is ‘normal’? I find this an interesting question because what is one person’s ‘normal’ can very much be someone else’s ‘abnormal’. I saw Vivienne Porritt give a fantastic TEDx where she said normal is a setting on a washing machine so the word should be banned in terms of describing people; instead, we should celebrate and value what each unique person has to offer.

Daily, we’re adjusting to all this and for each one of us, there are different challenges we face and we will all think, feel and act differently - our own version of ‘normal’.

Many are being furloughed, therefore earning less than they are used to, unless their employer is generously making up the difference; some have lost their job – their company simply cannot keep their footing in these uncertain times; there are those on zero contract hours and their employer has had to put things on hold, so therefore they...

Got the time

The situation we find ourselves in will continue for the foreseeable future so we have two choices: to feel hopeless, anxious and adrift or to be bold, step up and make what we can of it all.

These are unprecedented times. This is brand new to all of us and discombobulation is probably a very common feeling. However, rather than continue to feel like things are spiralling downwards beyond your control, anchor yourself in the here and now; use the time to think about what you want to achieve.

Unless a key worker or working from home, you will have a lot of spare time on your hands. The question is, how will you choose to use it? Will you get to the end of all this and have ticked off a list, achieved a big goal or maybe whiled away the hours going through boxset after boxset?

How many times do we wish we had spare time to sit and be, to reflect on our life so far and to think about what we want for our future? Rather than rushing here, there and everywhere, the hamster...

Lockdown mindset

I write this blog fresh from a Joe Wicks PE workout. Was I big advocate of his fitness and food advice before lockdown? No. My fitness routine was a daily dog walk – a brisk dog walk but that was it. There’s the usual hurrying and scurrying that goes with being a working Mum of three but there’s not a kettle bell in sight.

However, in these COVID-19 lockdown times, I find myself craving structure and the Joe Wicks PE Workout provides that. It gets me and my girls in the right mindset to start the day and gives us a fab rush of endorphins to gain a sense of positivity – something greatly needed at the moment.

Up until now, I haven’t written a blog about the current situation which globally, we all face. I felt it important to change the focus, to give readers a brief respite from it all. However, I feel now, as we enter the second week of lockdown in the UK, it’s like the elephant in the room. The effects of this situation ripple...