Self-Care During Quarantine | Change Your Perspective

Self-care during quarantine. Now more than ever we need to pay attention to our thoughts. I wrote this last December. I was just finishing up my Holistic Life Coaching certification, so I was all Zen-like and really feeling these words in my heart. This was before COVID-19 was even on my radar. Now as I sit here after over 2 weeks of being quarantined due to COVID-19, or as I like to refer to it as “The Cove”, re-reading this entry became a great reminder of how I can change my perception of all that is going on in the world currently. This isn’t to say that your myriad feelings aren’t valid, rather, I hope this serves as letting another area of your brain take the wheel for a bit to give your anxiety a break. Even if just for a few moments. Please also keep in mind, I swing back and forth daily with my own feelings while being quarantined. Some days are OK, some days are actually great, some days are filled with tears. I’m human and frankly, crying is a great release for me. There have been many, many moments where I’m listening to a Podcast or see a post on someone’s feed about “how to be productive during quarantine” and I want to reach through my screen and high-five them in the forehead. So, again, I’m human and my emotions run the range like you. But I’m striving to come to peace with this “new normal” and it all starts with my words below.

There’s such a pureness in silence. Being alone with your thoughts can tell truths we’ve been avoiding. When there’s no noise pollution we can take in the cleansing that the quiet brings. It is in these moments that we get to know who we really are. The world is full of so much chatter. We have distractions layered upon distractions. Ever notice how your pulse quickens as you scroll mindlessly through social media? Are we even really truly seeing what we’re scrolling past? Or how about how we hold our breath throughout the day. I constantly catch myself tensing up and not taking in a deep enough breath to fill my lungs and feel my belly expand let alone full exhale. This is daily tension and over the last decade or so it’s become normal for us.

Like all things, silence and being still is like a muscle, it gets stronger the more we exercise it. We work so hard to fill these quiet moments because we view them as voids in our life. Some use food, some use retail therapy, some use work, some use drugs or alcohol, you name it. We find our distraction and wear it as a badge of honor to stay busy. What if we entertained the idea that these aren’t always voids but instead are vessels in time meant to hold our silent thoughts to purify us and take us back home. I think the fear of silence is actually the reality that we’re trying to avoid because we don’t trust our own minds. We fear we may not be enough. We fear we aren’t doing enough like those we see on social media. We fear our past will sneak up on us and we’ll get caught in old thought patterns and spiral down the rabbit hole. We fear the negative self-talk could be right. What we need to realize is that’s part of the noise pollution that bombards us from the moment we awake to the moment we close our eyes. It’s an epidemic that haunts us even in our sleep and robs many of us from even getting any sleep.

Take a step towards fear. Walk into that silent space and sit on the floor. There’s a lot to be learned and we can’t hear the lessons above the noise and distractions. Do not fear fear. Embrace your fear and show it that you love it. Self-love is loving all of our parts, both light and dark. Give silence your attention and see what turns up. These parts have important messages and like anyone else, they just want to be heard.