When we first went into "lockdown" in Ireland there was a sense of community, that this is just for a few weeks, "the weather is great, lets get cracking on the house/garden" now it's Novemember and here we are again, just as we were starting to feel somewhat human again, we are bck in lockdown. This time though it's different, the weather is dull and cold, the evenings are dark and we are feeling vunerable, isolated, our future is unsure and we are finding it hard to hold on to the resilliance we had in the spring.
We are anxious, nervous about human interaction, yet this is something that we as humans thrive on, indeed it is our very nature. How can we find the inner strengths to get through this lockdown. Yes we can exercise, cook, watch Christmas movies (maybe that's just me!), read a good book or zoom a friend (yes we are all zoom savvy these days) all nice bits of advice but we need something stronger and I'm not talking about alcohol, we need to find a deeper, more meaningful solution. So where do we find it?
Within....we are made of very strong stuff, we just have to tap into those resources that we all have. We do that by re-structuring our thought processes. We are the product of our thoughts, we take meaning, we think, we feel, we behave and in that order. The meaning we extract from our surroundings, our interactions, our lack of interaction is directly linked to what we think about our world. Those thoughts make us feel deeply, our feelings are strong and the stronger the feeling the more intense the behaviour that comes from these feelings. So how can all this cause and effect help us right now in lockdown?
What does lockdown mean to you....that's where you start.