What Did the Lockdown Teach You?
As we here in England begin to, tentatively, emerge from lockdown with restrictions still in place but to a slightly lesser degree, it seems as good a time as any to pause and ask ourselves what life lessons from lockdown did we learn.
Whenever any great trauma or challenge is thrown at us, it’s the perfect opportunity for self-growth. As the popular song by Green Day goes:
It’s not a question but a lesson learned in time…”
Good Riddance/Time of Your Life (Green Day)
Career Life Lessons
I’m sure many of us are emerging from lockdown as very different people with very different circumstances to how we went into it. Take jobs, for example. So many of us have been furloughed and/or have been made or will be made redundant. Sure, we could sit there (as I at times have myself), and demand to know “Why me?” and feel sorry for ourselves, or we could use the time to apply for other jobs, try our hand at something new and see whether that could bring in some unexpected cash.
I use this as an example as it’s a life lesson from Coronavirus that has applied to me personally. As someone who identified strongly with my career finding out that my role was one of those up for potential redundancy of course came as a bitter blow. Having the threat of this hanging over me for a month or so also isn’t good for someone who tends to get quite anxious if I don’t know the outcome of something “now”.
Don’t get me wrong, I still have the occasional “wobble” about it but, 3 weeks later, Covid-19 has brought me multiple new life lessons in this area. Firstly, I’m learning the lifeskill of going through the redundancy process which is something new for me. Secondly, I’m learning to be okay with not knowing the outcome of everything “right now” – I’ll find out when I need to know and I’ll deal with the issue then. Thirdly, it’s opened up the prospect of a new life for me applying for new roles and fourthly I’ve started getting paid for my writing by being accepted as a writer for other people’s blogs! I am insanely excited by that. No the rates aren’t as good as they were when I coached or was a lawyer, but I do love to write!
I never would have even thought to apply as a freelance writer for hire had the pandemic not come along and threatened my livelihood but here I am getting paid for a hobby. Blessing in disguise maybe?
Personal Life Lessons
Before Covid-19, I did not know that I could be stuck in the same building with my husband, 2 children and dog for 2 months straight without actually going insane. Yet here I am!
Not that we haven’t had our moments as I’m sure many of us have especially with homeschooling my 8-year old 5 days a week for 6 hours a day. Then there’s the challenges faced by those of us living alone who have found ourselves isolated from loved ones other than by some limited contact via technology.
As someone who adores staying home when I’m not working, I’ve discovered that once lockdown is lifted, I want to make more of an effort to go to at least one or two places extra, more often. You really can have too much of a good thing!
I’ve also tried, as much as possible to go through this experience without alcohol so it’s now been almost 7 weeks without a drink with some interesting results. I definitely think I am dealing with the threat of redundancy better without alcohol and, overall, whilst there are still good days and bad in this whole experience, the swing from good to bad has been less pronounced, with less mood swings and a better awareness of myself and others.
Spiritual Life Lessons
This one has been a biggie and I’m very grateful that even before the pandemic struck, I already had a good set of tools and practices such as yoga, meditation, journalling, tarot reading and access to spiritual reading/viewing material on YouTube and Kindle (see link below).
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/hz/subscribe/ku?*entries*=0&_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
The biggest lesson here for me has been to live in the moment and the well-known spiritual teacher, Eckart Tolle (https://eckharttolle.com/), who also has a free YouTube channel, has really helped explain this concept in an amusing yet profound way.
We’ve become accustomed in the West to looking for things “out there” to fill the emptiness we all feel sometimes. Lessons from lockdown here then have been that if we go inwards to face that emptiness, to sit with it, to listen to it, we can find an inner peace that cannot be reached or obtained by anything “out there”. Without the distractions of the outer world, we can connect with our inner wisdom to help us through the inevitable and necessary challenges and lessons life will always throw our way. Big spotlight shined here for me these last few weeks!
The Coronavirus has swept into all of our lives in 2020 in a way that few of us could have imagined at the start of the year. It has of course brought with it some very sad situations for many people and families. But, as with all of life’s difficulties, one of the benefits is that there are blessings to be found alongside those difficulties. It can be extremely rewarding, and give us renewed strength for the next phase of lockdown, to take a moment to reflect back on the lessons we’ve learned in lockdown.
Feel free to share this article with others, especially if you think it would help them through this challenging time.
Holistic Living With Carla 