Tag: #selfcare

Welcoming our unpleasant feelings as friends

In the quest for the nice feelings, we implicitly learn that the unpleasant feelings are bad. So we look to avoid the pain and sadness, after all, why feel those feelings when we can feel happy?
Many of us spend a lot of time avoiding things that make us uncomfortable, or look to distract ourselves when we are sad. Even when we are finally forced to face these feelings, we bare through it with gritted teeth.

I have been reflecting on this theme as I have battled through a biting cough and severe sore throat over the last few days. In the past, this would be the cue for me to be frustrated at my body, and look at how inconvenient this all was.
But this time, I took time to appreciate what my body was telling me. It was time for me to slow down and heal

Understanding ourselves during the rollercoaster of lockdown

The lockdown has been a tough journey. For some of us, it has meant the difficulty of losing loved ones and not being able to grieve as we normally would. For others, it has meant homeschooling and juggling job responsibilities. Some of us are worried about protecting our more vulnerable friends and family, meaning we haven’t been able to visit them in quite some time.

For better or for worse, I’ve learnt a lot more about my own trigger points and warning signs internally. For me, I tend to be a lot more disorganised with my thoughts, often interrupting myself mid-speech when I am overwhelmed.

What have you learnt about yourself during the pandemic?

Your biggest productivity hack? Give yourself a break

If you’re in the UK, you’ve probably just come back into work a bit bleary-eyed after a long weekend with the bank holiday. It’s a nice novelty, considering as a country we have one of the lowest amount of public holidays in the world.

We usually appreciate the feeling of having some time off, so this is a good moment to reflect: what if we could tap into bringing ourselves out of our work routines more often?