I’m going to give you Three powerful ideas for how to feel better as you move through this time of concern. In other posts I’ll share additional strategies with you so you can stay emotionally aligned and positive, as you move gracefully and calmly through the coming days ahead!
So What are the First Three Strategies?
1. Asking Powerfully Positive Questions
2. Creating a Distraction Therapy Activity List
3. Virtually Connecting with Friends and Family
Strategy One: Asking Powerfully Positive Questions
This is a wonderful strategy for responding to any issue that fills us with fear, stress or anxiety.
Whenever we are afraid, or stressed out, it is because we have been asking powerfully negative questions in our mind, either consciously or unconsciously. “What if I get sick?” “What if my kids, or my parents, get sick and die?” “What if our whole community gets it?” “What if this is the start of the zombie-apocalypse?” You get the idea. Our minds can really go wild, if you let them.
Instead, write down and continually ask in your mind, powerfully positive questions. You won’t answer these questions. You will simply ask them. Frame your question in a positive manner and make it as powerful as you can imagine.
One way to think about this is to say the exact opposite of your fears. Say the exact opposite of the powerfully negative things you are thinking. “What if I never get sick and stay super healthy?” “What if my kids and parents never get sick and stay super healthy and happy for their long and lovely lives?” “What if our community comes together and stays safe and healthy and remains free from an outbreak while growing stronger and more prepared together?” “What if this is the start of us reducing carbon emissions globally, working together more locally, becoming better prepared for emergencies, and improving our health care system and society beyond anything we can presently imagine?” You get the idea. Let your mind go wild.
One template that is helpful in composing powerfully positive questions is the “What’s the best I can imagine?” language pattern. Whatever your issue of concern is, place it inside this template. “What’s the best I can imagine this week going with the kids home from school?” “What’s the healthiest I can imagine us staying throughout this entire time?” “What’s the easiest and shortest I can imagine this to be?” “What’s the most fun I can imagine us having this week as we break our normal life patterns and get to do some different activities at home together?”
Strategy Two: Creating a Distraction Therapy Activity List
This strategy is especially helpful if you have children who are staying home from school. If we are self-isolating, or at least staying home more than usual, it’s important to be able to entertain ourselves, and especially to distract ourselves from thinking, worrying, watching, and reading too much about “the big scare.” So, limit your consumption of news media about the coronavirus and give yourself the benefit of “Distraction Therapy” by providing yourself with activities that will distract your mind from negative things, and replace them with positive things.
Make a list of things you can do at home that are fun, or productive, or that need to get done, as well as a list of places you can go to play or recreate or get out of the house.
Of course there are the obvious examples of distraction therapy through video games, the internet, movies, and television. So, put these on your list. Then, you can add reading books, listening to podcasts or music, playing music, writing, drawing or making some other kind of art project. Cooking or building something, cleaning, or organizing your closet, garage, or kitchen drawers. You get the point. You can even turn this time into a time that is fun and productive and that gives you opportunities to do things you have been wanting to do for years. Remember, the obstacle is the opportunity. Boredom or time is the gift. Being housebound gives you freedom.
Now, create a list of things you can do outside of the house. Take a walk or hike. Visit a local park, forest, beach or natural area. Ride bikes, skateboard, or play some basketball or tennis together with your family, or a friend.
Strategy Three: Virtually Connecting with Friends and Family
If you, and/or your family, find that you are stuck at home and are not going to school or work, it can get lonely after a while. In order to prevent this, and in order to help your friends and loved ones to feel better, Right Now is the perfect time to reach out to them. Virtually, not physically.
We have so many ways to connect with those we love today. Whether it is a phone call, text, email, facebook message, or facetime chat, we have lots of ways to communicate with our friends and family, no matter where they are, even if they are in our own hometown. So, while you are staying at home, make a concerted effort to call your local friends and just chat with them, ask them how they are doing. Call your family and old friends across the country and catch up with them and ask how their community is doing. Put your kids on facetime with their grandparents and get the dog in the video too, so we can all have some fun. Use your isolation as a time to connect more often and more deeply with those you know, love and care about.
Do these things my friends and…
You will turn losses into lessons
And You will turn grief into growth
Because we can turn our greatest fears into our wildest fantasies
Stay healthy and happy my friends!
