Tag: mental health

Grocery Shopping, Yoga, and Collective Grief during a Pandemic

Grocery Shopping During a Pandemic

I had to go get groceries last night. We are stocked up on non-perishables but needed fresh fruit and vegetables. I normally enjoy grocery shopping. Weirdly a lot. My husband gets frustrated at how long it takes me to “pick up a few items” (especially when I luxuriously don’t have the kids with me).

I like the process of systematically checking off items on my list, deciding whether I want a bunch of small bananas or long bananas, which protein appeals to me – seafood, chicken, meat? Those are things I can’t do shopping online. However, online had been my go-to lately given what’s happening in the world but was unable to. 

I had tried to order online with my normal local supermarket but they don’t have any available pick-up times for a month and the other one was over a two-week wait. So I was in Safeway taking one for the team. 

I waited until 7:30 pm hoping it wouldn’t be busy at that time. I was right, it wasn’t but those of us who were there were wearing gloves, trying to smile in distanced solidarity but also side-eyeing each other suspiciously and generally, all looked like we were holding our breath. 

I hated every second of being there. 

When I got in the car I wiped my hands thoroughly and took off my jacket and gloves and put it in a plastic bag. When I got home I left my boots outside and wiped down everything before bringing them in the house. I took a shower and cried. 

Grieving the Everyday Things I Took For Granted

Trying to explain this awful feeling I had to my husband I struggled. What exactly was it that was making me feel so horrible? It wasn’t just the fear of catching the virus. Or the fact that all the shelves that normally hold sugar and flour were bare (it seems baking supplies are the new toilet paper). It was the loss of doing something I normally enjoyed and now dreaded. Of feeling vulnerable and so conscious of my presence in the world and being uncomfortable with it. 

That feeling, my friends, is grief. 

Grieving Life As We Knew It Coronavirus

This Harvard Business Review article helped put it into perspective and make me feel like it wasn’t just me feeling it right now. 

“We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different. Just as going to the airport is forever different from how it was before 9/11, things will change and this is the point at which they changed. The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.”

Naming it does help. And accepting that there is a loss. I feel myself moving through the stage of grief and watching my kids as they do too. There have been moments of pure joy at being able to spend more time together as a family and not having to rush and stick to strict daily routines. There have also been some epic meltdowns at not being able to play with friends, hug Nanna, or go very far away from home. 

Finding Meaning in Loss and Social Distancing

What also helps is finding meaning out of all this. My daughter gave me an idea after she and my son spontaneously burst into a rendition of “Some of My Favourite Things” from The Sound of Music (a live show we attended just a few months ago which now seems like a memory from a different time). So here are our lists of things we didn’t know we cared so much about but miss, and things we didn’t notice before we were forced to slow down. 

Things I Don’t Miss:

  • Commuting downtown
  • Rushing around to different activities
  • Being mentally exhausted all the time
  • Missing my kids all day
  • Feeling like I’m not doing enough
  • FOMO

 

Things we took for granted and miss: 

  • Eating in restaurants
  • Sushi!
  • Picking out library books
  • Hugging loved ones
  • Touching our faces
  • Playing with friends
  • Learning in a classroom
  • Dinner parties
  • Movie theatres/live theatre/concerts
  • Rec-center swimming pools
  • Vacations/travel
  • Skiing 
  • Ballet class

Hugging a friend

Things we didn’t notice/have time for before we were forced to stay home: 

  • At-home yoga/exercise is fantastic! 
  • Living room dance parties are so much fun
  • Cooking/Baking together and experimenting with new recipes
  • Bike riding every day with no destination or plan
  • Building forts outside with blankets and chairs
  • Discovering new trails and secret fairy hideaways in the forest
  • Talking to neighbours that normally have only noticed in passing
  • There are so many crafts you can make with empty egg cartons
  • Dried acrylic paint chunks make beautiful artwork
  • Sidewalk chalk messages of love and hope
  • Writing stories together and illustrating them
  • Our family and our health is the most important thing

This list will keep growing. I’m determined to keep looking on the bright side, while also acknowledging the losses. The balance of both is essential, I believe, to coming through this time not only intact but possibly stronger.

What are your favorite things today? In this together apart.

Read more about Social Distancing with Kids in this post.

children-playing-outside-social-distancing

The Importance of Wholeheartedness and Belonging at Work

Coffee cup heart coffee beans

“If we want people to fully show up at the workplace, we need to create a culture where people feel heard, cared for and connected. Psychological safety makes it possible to have tough conversations and trust and respect for each other. The benefits of having a place to belong include increased productivity, creativity, and innovation.” Brené Brown Education and Research Group

There’s no crying in baseball …or the office

Take out the emotion. That’s the common wisdom when it comes to work, and I learned it early on. I was never very good at it, but when I was beginning my career, no alternatives existed.

So, when at work, I focused on work. My persona, with the emotions taken out, interacted with the people I worked with. She was the construct I had created, what I thought, was the acceptable version of me to have a career in business. It worked for a while. I was dubbed an “A-player” by my male bosses and given promotions. I worked tirelessly to achieve more, be more. Be like those I was surrounded by daily.

It was long after the Don Draper era where people denied emotions completely and managed by openly self-medicating with a decanter in every executive’s office. And, it was a decade before any conversation around mental health in the workplace. It was the time of Obama, Osama Bin Laden, a recession caused by greedy bankers, climate change awareness, and the introduction of social media and smartphones. There was so much changing, yet this big thing that no one talked about.

Technology causes connection and disconnection

It was the final crossover period from analog to total digital. I had a laptop and a Blackberry and could work from anywhere. With Facebook, I could keep in touch with friends from all over the world. After my niece was born in London, UK, I could Skype with my sister every day so it felt as though I knew this little person without ever having actually met her. It was amazing. Technology was advancing at breakneck speed and enabling so much connection. And yet, so much disconnection.

Being able to work from anywhere, any time meant never really shutting off. It’s hard to rest when your mind is constantly spinning. Waking up feeling like I was already behind and never getting ahead. Working on my own, in isolation much of the time because I could. Because I was tired and it took too much energy to pretend to be upbeat and happy all the time which was the other version of me I had created.

Something felt off.

Anxiety creeps in

It came on slowly. The tightening in the chest became more pronounced, more noticeable more often. I could no longer just “push through it.” I could no longer deny that only bringing my persona was crippling my innate creativity and fostering my fears of being an imposter.

Humans are hardwired for connection. Like water, food, and air we need to connect with other beings. To do that, to really do that, you can’t be a persona. You have to bring your whole self. I’m not saying you can bring everything that’s going on in your life into work and lay it out on the table. That is self-indulgent and not productive. But it is OK to say sometimes, “I’m not really OK today. But I showed up and I’m doing my best.”

Wholehearted Living

Brene Brown’s 10 Guideposts for Wholehearted Living are as follows:

  1. Cultivating Authenticity and Letting Go of What Other People Think
  2. Cultivating Self-Compassion and Letting Go of Perfectionism
  3. Cultivating Your Resilient Spirit, Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
  4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy, Letting go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
  5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith, Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
  6. Cultivating Creativity and Letting Go of Comparison
  7. Cultivating Play and Rest, Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
  8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness and Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
  9. Cultivating Meaningful Work, Letting Go of Self-Doubt and Supposed-To
  10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance. And Letting Go of Cool and Always in Control

I haven’t mastered this but wholeheartedness is my goal and I’m working toward it.

It may scare the crap out of some people. On the other hand, it may just give them the permission to say it too the next time they feel that way. It may just open up a workplace that is more empathetic which can’t help but create that connectivity we so need to be successful.

Also read: Bring Your Whole Self from my 40-Before-40 Series

Woman with her arms open