How We are Taking Care of Ourselves
Thank you for sharing your tips and tricks and tools for this chapter we find ourselves in.
I know that some of you have shared what helps in moments of fear, panic, loss—to get from one scary moment to the next.
Other new habits or old favourites provide us with some perspective, hope, gratitude.
You’ve also shared what you have thoroughly enjoyed and look forward to doing more of.
With permission, I have posted them here.
Please do keep them coming here. Kindly let me know, if I may post them along with any pictures to help inspire the rest of us.
Here we go.
I buy myself flowers every week.
I’m listening to audiobooks of my favourite childhood author, Roald Dahl. Yesterday it was George’s Marvelous Medicine. YouTube has a whole bunch.
-Now I nap when my kids nap.
-I’ve stopped reading the bad news. I know I need to read something…so I’m reading about the race to make a vaccine. It fills me with hope! Our scientists are working so hard.
-At 39, I am making coffee at home for the first time in my life.
-I have a pretend commute. Every day right after work, I go for a walk. This marks the end of my work day.
-I literally dusted my piano and have started to play.
-I have finally started to play chess on my laptop. This is something I have been meaning to do since buying it over five years ago. (Every Mac has a chess game.)
-Going for a short walk everyday is something I never used to do but I’m actually enjoying it. Everyone waves now!
“I moved my furniture all around. And I have started to question the art I have on my walls. Do I still like it?”
-Going out at 8pm on a Wednesday, to take part in a round of applause for the hospital staff in my town and just looking around to see neighbours doing the same gives me a sense of a caring community.
-Three weeks ago, I scattered some seeds. So everyday I look out at them and give them a little talking to, “Keep on growing!!!”
-We are playing Monopoly. I had to tape up the box. It is so old.
I have changed my night time routine. I check the news at 10:00 instead of 11:00pm. After the news, I watch an episode of Seinfeld.
I can’t do anything. I am too stressed and in shock. So I am making piles and lists of things that I want to do one day.
I check in on the flowers around the neighbourhood. When this all started, I looked for plants that were just starting to break through the ground. As a gardener, this was a life line. On a tough day, I make myself check in on the daffodils behind the AGO, take a picture and go back home. There are purple crocuses budding on Huron Street.
I have made a list of things that I have always wanted to learn. I see that some of them require lots of hours at home. Yay!
My mom and I chat daily. Whoever is putting the coffee water on first, calls the other.
I ride my bike. I never felt safe cycling in the city. But now with much less traffic, I can do it. It makes me feel so free.
Whenever it rains, I make sure to go for a walk.
-When I am panicking, I remind myself that that is normal. It is a stressful time. And then I reassure myself that it will pass.
-I call my friends’ parents. Not just to check in but to gather some wisdom and perspective from them.
-I take a walk at noon, no matter what I’m doing.
-I rubbed my hands on the bark of a tree.
-I make a list of the bad stuff and a list of the good stuff.
“I watch kids shows from my childhood.”
I am researching my ancestry. I am 19 generations back on my paternal side so far.
I am watching a lot of British television. There is a free one-month trial with this streaming service that has all-British content.
I make jewelry for friends and mail it to them.
I buy chips and ice cream on Fridays.
I remembered that I loved to fold the laundry. I take the time now to do this as slowly and perfectly as I can.
