Starting with what I learned during my last maternity leave (which at times can be pretty isolating) and moving into more specific COVID iso related advice… here’s a list of how not to lose your tiny mind in isolation.
- Listen to breakfast radio in the morning, it helps you feel connected to a broader community of people in real time
- Make sure you have a shower every single day, no exceptions. Even if your first shower of the day is at 8pm, make it happen.
- No daytime free to air TV. Ever. If in question about exceptions to this rule, read this rule again. No exceptions. Those infomercials are the surest way to breaking your tiny mind. This might also translate to ‘no news media’ on weekends – to give yourself a break from that C word.
- Read from a “day book” such as Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening which is written in snackable sized pages by “calendar date” and invites you to reflect and work on aspects of your mind and life.
- Differentiate your ‘weekend’ days to your ‘weekday’ days – I recently asked my Facebook community to comment on how they achieve this and there were some interesting responses; as expected, “more wine” featured but also; “Not forcing any activity or developmental work – weekends are allowed to be bedlam”, “Dancing”, “Rearranging/decluttering the house soooooo not exciting”, “We watch a movie and eat popcorn instead of a tv show at night”, “wear heels and going out clothes”, and my personal favourite, “integrating cheese into every meal”.
- When I was on a 5 day juice cleanse lockdown in Bali Trent and I found peace in writing a list of all the things we were going to eat when we got out. His list included saucy ribs, for example. Translating this to the ISO world, might be worthwhile starting a list of where you want to go and what you want to do at the end of iso – so instead of lamenting about not having access to those things now, you’re rather prioritising your release. This way you’ll also approach the iso release calmly and not explode. Your list could indicate what you will do in your first week, month, year out of iso (activities, family/friends, travel etc).
- If you have kids role reversal is fun for 10 minutes when they are the mum or dad and you get to ask them 1000 questions instead of the normal vice versa, so you say to your kid “mum, what are we doing today, mum why is the sky blue, mum I’m hungry, mum why are we in isolation”… quite fun. This also fills their “power” cup which inadvertently makes them behave a little easier afterwards (take note).
- Get into minimalism. Watch the Netflix doc; “Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things” and change the way you deal with ‘stuff’.
- Write letters to people in the post. One a week seems achievable when we’re staring down the barrel of a 3 month lockdown.
- Write a blog.. about how to not lose your tiny mind.. in isolation.
Welcome any other ideas or advice to add to this list 🙂
EDIT (Additions):
- Write a letter to your future self about how you’re feeling since having less commitments, less expectation on yourself. Put it in ‘notes’ in a calendar event a year or two away.
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