This time is a real rollercoaster; it seems that we can't predict one day to the next and even when we do all the things we know "should" help, we can end up feeling shit at the end of the day, or all through the day. There's a lot of information going around, people prescribing running daily, yoga, writing a book (or finishing that book), yoga, baking, yoga and yoga. It can be easy to see all of this and feel inadequate, that we are not "lockdowning properly". It looks as though people are living their most wholesome lives, but what I've seen a lot less of is the pain.
There's a lot of pain going around at the moment; we are losing loved ones, old traumas are revisiting us and the lives we used to lead have disappeared. It's painful. And for a lot of us our mental health is really suffering. It's a difficult time for those who would offload to friends, family or partners. It's hard for those who need to get out to clear their heads, and for the majority of us who keep ourselves busy from dusk til dawn so we can avoid sitting with uncomfortable feelings and thoughts...
The busyness has had to slow and with it we are having to learn to sit with those things we habitually push away. We are having to learn new ways of dealing with our pain that involve facing it head on, sitting with it and feeling it - like really feeling it. The amazing thing is that when we sit with the shitty feelings and thoughts we start to see that they won't kill us. We can learn to hold ourselves and sit with the pain and discomfort until it becomes a (kind of) friend. Often our pain pops up when there are unresolved issues, when it wasn't felt at the time it happened or when we haven't honoured the part of our self that had to deal with the shit situation.
This lockdown has seen many long nights sitting with my inner little one, letting her cry and her hurt be felt. It's seen days and days of tears that were not allowed to fall before and pain that I thought I'd dealt with coming up in the strangest of ways. I've been holding myself until I feel less fragile and little more whole. These lessons in self compassion keep coming and I have to welcome them.