Adapting - again

We are on the brink of the last week of lockdown and we will all be going into our different tiers for the period until Christmas. We are nearly at the end of what was a new phase and now we are moving to the next. At each stage of this virus we have had to adapt and then adapt and adapt again and it has been painful for us to deal with.

The problem with going through things that we have not chosen is that we are challenged by it and forced into reflecting on the lives that we live and to reappraise them. How can we adapt to each and every twist and turn in the Covid-19 drama that has taken over our lives since March this year?

We have all experienced so many different emotions over the last few months according to the impact that it has had on our individual lives but no matter what has happened to us, we have all been on an emotional rollercoaster. Some of us have felt tearful, have cried, felt anxious, had panic attacks and much much worse. Some of us have had to deal with low level depression. And these feelings have been experienced collectively which has exacerbated the fear that we have experienced living with the threat of the virus hanging over all of us.

At normal times, we would do the things that make us feel good and even those have been, at times, impossible. Without seeing our family and friends for periods of time, we have been under lots of pressure and this pressure continues as we wait to see if we are going to be able to see our loved ones this Christmas. Our nerves are frayed and and our emotional boundaries are fluctuating from moment to moment. I am hoping that we can all be together from Christmas Eve until New Year's day and I hope that when I say all of us, I mean my whole family, together, in the way we usually celebrate Christmas. We are all hoping that this lockdown has had the desired effect and with the vaccine on its way, things will be changing again.

The reality is that it doesn't matter what I want or what anyone else wants, the government will tell us what we can and can't do over the Christmas period. And we will have to adapt our ideas, plans, feelings about ourselves once again. How can we best do this?

1. Surrender - if the news means that you cannot all spend your Christmas with everyone in your family, then you need to accept it no matter how much you feel like pushing back against it. I liken this feeling to being told by your Mum that you can't go and play crazy golf with your siblings as a child when you have a fever. You resist the news, you wish it were different, you get angry with your Mum, you bargain with her, you cry, you feel completely unable to accept the news.

2. Plan - look at what you can and cannot achieve - focus on speaking to all those concerned about what they can and cannot do. The reality is that everyone in the family will have different needs, priorities and capabilities. In my family for instance, we have elderly relatives to think of and then we have students who cannot isolate for long enough to be able not to be a threat to them. There is only one overriding priority which is to keep everyone safe but some people can isolate for fourteen days so that they can be with the elderly faction of the family and others can't. The most important thing is to communicate with one another directly and, by discussing all the possible plans you will be able to make a plan together and then deal with peoples' emotions about what is possible. Do the planning together and you stand a better chance of managing everyone's emotions about what is and, more to the point, not possible.

3. Breathe! The emotions around such discussions are not easy to deal with, especially when things don't go our way. What do you do when you are handling difficult emotions? I have been known to overeat, binge watch series on Netlix or Prime and try to shove the feelings down instead of letting them out. This is not the time to do this. Take some very deep breaths and let it go. It's only one Christmas, just as this has been only one year of our lives. Give yourself a break. Cry if you need to. Find someone to talk to and talk to them. Sometime we are not very good at doing this and even if we do speak to someone we tend not to tell them exactly what we are thinking or feeling. Do your best to connect with those around you.

4. Take good care of yourself - maintain your healthy lifestyle, eat well, get as much sleep as you can, laugh as much as possible, get some exercise by going for a walk at the very least, avoid caffeine and alcohol/recreational drugs and take time out in nature so that you completely disconnect from your devices... and not too much binge watching remember! Meditation can really help.

Just remember - you are not alone!

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