How savouring, awe, gratitude and kindness might just be our superpowers to support us to navigate Covidland with more grace and ease
Honestly, I have always had a mild distaste for “positive thinking”. When I see those “Good Vibes Only” t-shirts, I think “But what about the bad vibes, where the hell do we put those?”
I can’t stand those rosy perfect people – you know the ones; always looking on the bright side. Everything is always great in their life, their kids are well-behaved, they love their job, they have time (and desire) to make wholesome nutritious meals for their family every night and they have perfect, perfect hair. I want none of it. I want to hear about the Full Catastrophe; the icky, murky, hairy stuff we don’t usually speak about. The stuff that is reserved for those private moments or journal entries. The secrets that are whispered in dark corners, after perhaps too much red wine.
I guess that is part of the reason I became a psychologist. I get to sit with people and help them to peer under their own veneer of perfection, in much the same way I have had to peer under my own over the many years I have lived with this body/mind/heart.
The thing is though, if we only focus on the icky, mucky, sticky stuff we probably only find more icky, mucky, sticky stuff. It is the way us humans are put together, we are hard-wired to focus on the negative. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t have to look too far at the moment for the negative - it is right at my doorstep and my guess is, it is right there at yours too.
Our world is going through a pretty interesting time which means we are going through a pretty interesting time as, of course, we are all intricately connected. So, while I am absolutely not suggesting we all jump online and buy “Good Vibes Only” t-shirts, we do need to mind ourselves pretty closely to ensure we don’t get swept up into the spiral of negativity and whisked away to the Nether (sorry, my kids are playing way too much Minecraft and the Nether is a world – from what I can gather!).
So, how can we mind ourselves?
How can we keep going while, at times, it feels like the world is crumbling around us?
Now is the time to bring in our real superpowers; we need to feed the good, we need to search for it and when we find it, we need to savour it. It is there, it is just hiding in the everyday moments that, in the hustle and bustle of our pre-Covid lives, we may have missed and now, in Covidland, we can’t seem to find the good at all.
Feed the Feels
Savouring is one of my favorite mindfulness practices. It is simply feeling the good feels we naturally feel but feeding them – feeding the feels! So, in the morning, when you have your first cup of coffee/tea – practice savouring it, hang on to the good feelings and the pleasure a little longer than usual. You can savour the smile of your child, the spring in your dog’s step or the feel of clean sheets as you slide into bed. In fact I practiced today with 3 or maybe 4 pieces of dark chocolate (note: you really only need 1 but, who is counting?)
Awwwww with Awe
Most of us take ourselves and our lives way too personally and way too seriously. We think we are the centre of it all and all of this inconvenience we are currently facing (wearing masks, home-schooling the kids, not seeing our nearest and dearest….the list can go on) is personal. It is not, none of it is personal, it just is. A great way to regain perspective and remember our place is letting awe and wonder creep into our system. Awe and wonder are experiences that happen when we are faced with something greater than ourselves – nature is a great place to start. Go outside and spend some time being in awe of the majesty of the clouds or head into a park and bask in the glory of an old gum tree. If looking outside isn’t your thing, you might like to look inside and explore meditation. The unending expanse and limitless nature of our very own mind or the intricacy of our very own body are both indeed worthy of our wonder and our awe.
How Lucky are We?
My beautiful late mum had many catch phrases, but I think my favourite was “how lucky are we?”. She used to spray that phrase with great abandon; scones, jam and cream = “how lucky are we?”, lovely sunset = “how lucky are we?”, a great meal with friends = “how lucky are we?”. She certainly lived with an attitude of gratitude and I have no doubt her mindset served her well during many years of ill-health. Plenty has been written about the benefits of gratitude on our mental and physical health (a google search of “gratitude research” will yield a plethora of resources) so it is absolutely part of the heavy artillery we can all be drawing on right now. Again, not to ignore the pain we are experiencing, simply to see the whole picture of rich, beautiful, hard, funny life; the full catastrophe.
A Kind Connection
Did you know we have a whole network in our brain (and body to be accurate) that is there for the purpose of social connection? Did you also know that accessing this same network is one of the quickest ways to settle our frazzled nerves and spinning mind? How cool is that?! Now, connection really is the key thing we are all missing at the moment as we navigate Covidland. We might need to get a little creative to get our chemical connection kick – here are some ideas:
Reach out to friends and family using different media;
o send a text/snail-mail letter/email,
o do a zoom coffee/drink or
o drop off some cupcakes/cookies/bunch of flowers from your garden
Make conscious choices about your use of social media – we go on there looking for a connection hit, but often leave feeling somewhat unsatisfied and sometimes even emptier than before.
Give your dog, partner, children, teddy-bear, rolled-up blanket or yourself more hugs than ever – at least 3 x 30 seconds per day is my recommendation, but feel free to double the dose!
Now, none of this is to downplay the incredibly difficult situation we are all in. It is important we feel the grief and loss that is right at our doorstep. It is also important we don’t get sucked into its swamp. Us humans tend to forget one of the capital T Truths that is as old as time – everything changes, this will too. We have no idea what will be on the other side of this experience, in the meantime, there is savouring, awe, gratitude and kindness (and a dash of Minecraft and dark chocolate thrown in too) to get us by.