I hope you are holding up well during this crazy, somewhat stressful time in our world.
As I’ve been talking with my clients (via video of course) there has been a theme I’ve been hearing. And I thought it might be helpful to share it with you.
It’s been about being home, no work, no school, no structure and has been leading of course to boredom as well as some depressive like feelings.
This may fit you or it may not fit exactly for you but stay with me for a minute because it’s important.
There are two things to know in these times:
1) For most of us home is our down time. Pre-safe at home order, we’d been out all day working hard, running errands, in school, etc. So by the time we got home all we wanted was to get into our comfy clothes and relax.
Now that we are home all day we kind of are in the “I’m home want to relax” mood.
So give yourself permission for some of this. I was talking to a client that ordered the 4th season of Outlander and binged watched it. That’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up if you do SOME of this. We are at home. This is a down time. Take advantage of it.
AND
2) To keep from going in a wrong direction you want to ALSO create some schedule or structure in your life. I was working with another client — a young 19 year old that has some depressive tendencies and she was starting to show signs again. So we walked through and structured her day. We created set time to work out, a set time to do her college course work, and then we brainstormed on some projects she could do in her room or around the house. The depressive symptoms went away!
Remember having structure and being productive is an important part of coping with life stressors. It gets our mind off of ruminating in a negative direction. Being busy is just as important as having down time.
In my last email I shared about ways to get creative and connect with others ( a great way to add to your week) and my next email will be about how to add more down time and productive time, but all that’s good for you. It’s all about self care.
To Your Happiness (and safety),
Deborah