S3 E30: A Pep Talk for COVID Anniversary Season
Humans are really good at adapting, which is awesome, but that also means we don’t always fully acknowledge our own resilience within big changes. Let’s take a moment to celebrate making it through a whole year of pandemic life - this pep talk is for any of you who want to meet yourself exactly where you are, with extra self-compassion, during a prolonged stressful event.
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TRANSCRIPT
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 30 of Being A Whole Person! Can you believe that? 30 episodes since I pivoted the podcast to be about creative wellness. Speaking of 30 episodes, I'm taking a break from the podcast for a few weeks. It's not going anywhere, just a break, but after 30 episodes as a one-woman operation, with just a couple weeks off for the holidays, I'm ready for a break. Even though I love making this show and sharing this info with you. It is a lot to come up with the ideas, to record, to edit, to edit transcriptions, do all the stuff, and after doing it every week, almost every week for 30 weeks, it's time for a little break., I need to make space for other types of creativity for a bit. Most of all, this is me walking my talk - it is okay to take breaks, and that's what I need right now. So, I'm planning to be back sometime in April. And in the meantime, I'll re-air some of my favorite and some listener favorite episodes to tide you over in the break.
So today, I have a pep talk for you to celebrate (yes, I do mean celebrate) that we have made it through a whole year of pandemic life. If you're listening to this later than March 2021, that's okay, too - it is applicable stuff for any prolonged stressful time that you might find yourself in, just ignore the COVID parts and apply it to whatever is going on in your life.
So, it's March again. It's the month of meteorological and astronomical spring. It's the month of daylight savings time here in the U.S. And it is COVID anniversary season. I know we all have different ideas of what date is the anniversary date. I personally think of it as March 13. Friday the 13th was my last day at my school job, we were going to take a break for a few weeks, and we all know how that turned out. And wow, it's very unbelievable. How has it been a whole year? But it's also believable, because it feels like way more than a year. I don't understand. Time is weird.
But yes, let's celebrate that we've made it this far. We've made it through the adjustment to the world, basically stopping everything changing in our daily lives. Increasingly wild news, political stuff, racial justice, social justice coming to light, having to come to terms face to face with the fact that things have always been uncertain (but we just kind of try to pretend it's not that way most of the time) - all of this is big stuff.
Humans are really good at adapting, which is awesome, but that also means we can be quick to normalize big changes, and maybe that doesn't always let us fully acknowledge them. So I want to start by acknowledging that anniversaries can be hard, they bring up the trauma of the original event. You might have experienced this on the anniversary of a loved one's death or another painful event in your life. Often our bodies remember as much or as more than our minds, so if you're having extra physical or mental tension that you can't fully explain, and then you go, “Oh, it's that anniversary time again. Yeah, that makes sense,” That's a very normal thing.
Let's also normalize all forms of grief. Even if you haven't experienced a personal tragedy within COVID, we're grieving all kinds of losses, including the loss of normalcy in so many ways. So, but take time to honor that. You can allow yourself dedicated time to feel your feelings to process, remember what last March was like, just kind of going through that in your head, even though it might not be something you necessarily want to relive. It's just helpful to process and honor the tough parts of this, while also holding the hope that better things are coming, vaccinations are well underway, you know, we're still in the middle of it, but we can see the light. It's tough to hold the tough stuff in one hand, and hold the hope in the other hand, it can feel very disorienting.
You might be feeling yourself drawing further inward, with less motivation to make art, just because you're worn down at this point. Maybe you're feeling extra drawn to it, because it's very cathartic. Maybe you're getting this burst of extra energy, because here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is coming and the sun angle is stronger. I definitely have felt energized by that. And, anywhere in between, with no motivation, or tons of motivation is valid and normal. If you feel like you're like a yo yo, going between the two, that's also normal. It's all okay.
It's okay if you can't channel your grief or your feelings into your creative work, or if your normal sources of creativity haven't really returned. If the sense of normalcy hasn't returned, then your feeling of psychological safety might not have returned. So, of course, it's normal, that maybe you don't feel like you're in the right mindset to be creative in the way that maybe you're used to.
Even when things are getting back to “normal”, that transition is going to be gradual. And there's uncertainty wrapped up in that, too, like, what is it going to look like? Even when we're transitioning toward things that we think are really positive, transitions are still hard, because it's forcing us to change.
There might be things that are positive within this tough year that you don't want to let go of yet, which might feel weird in the context of how tragic it has all been. We can experience the both/and there - we can say, yes, this pandemic was terrible, but yes, I also like being at home more, and having more time with my family, or whatever it is for you.
As we're looking at this transition, and feeling pressure to get “back to normal”, which I felt at many times during this whole period, you know, as society decides, oh, this thing is reopening, hey, we're going back to normal, even though we know it's not really back to normal.
There's a lot of pressure with that to hit the ground running, and get in there and do all this stuff. So we don't have to give into that. At the beginning of this year, I said that I was sauntering into 2021 because “hit the ground running” was just not going to work. Sauntering in, kind of looking around, peering around the corner, “Can I come in here now?”, that kind of feeling. If you're feeling like that, that's totally fine. This time might require extra self compassion, extra grace, extra self care, and, of course, that might affect how much you're able to accomplish.
Compassionate productivity, if you've listened to this before, you know, that's a topic that's always on my mind. But last week, I just presented a workshop with Audrey Holst, who was recently a guest on the show - definitely go back and check out her episode, if you haven't. After the workshop, I, of course, feel a renewed intent to walk my talk, and make sure that I am practicing compassionate productivity as much as I possibly can.
In the month of February, I was noticing that, after January feeling so difficult, and so unstable in the collective, I really found myself moving more toward overwork, because it's a very familiar thing. As much as I work on it, it's always going to be a familiar pattern that I have to be aware of.
And because I was feeling more renewed, in terms of my energy level, then my level of ambition was rising, too. I was noticing my to do lists getting longer and longer, and noticing that I was never finishing them, and things were getting pushed from day to day to day to day. That's not inherently bad. I'm not saying that at all. But in the past, this would have given me a lot of nasty failure type feelings, and it didn't bother me this time around, even though there was a little bit of that familiar twinge of “Ooh, I'm not doing well enough,” because I didn't finish the list. But I was able to see it for what it was, which was, my expectations were higher than my capacity at that time.
So last week, I was able to make shorter lists and then three out of five days, I finished everything on that day's list, even though I was pretty tired and kind of questioning whether I'd be able to be effective those days. Again, I'm not saying three out of five days, check off the boxes to keep a scorecard, because I don't think that facilitates a healthy mindset necessarily, but just as evidence that I wasn't necessarily doing more, but I was more focused. Most of all, I was making better lists that reflected exactly what I had energy for, and what I could actually do with a reasonable end-time for work, because that is something that you need to do to preserve your energy.
Finishing your to do list is not a pinnacle of achievement, but it can be kind of a barometer that your expectations are more realistic. So if you don't plan on doing something today, maybe don't put it on your list for today. Keep it somewhere close, somewhere safe, like on your list for the week, or your list for the month, or whatever, so you don't forget it completely. But if you need to loosen your grip on achievement, that's okay. It might not be easy, it probably won't be easy, it'll probably be uncomfortable. It'll probably require you to practice having more patience with yourself, which has been a struggle for me many, many times, and will continue to be. But what it does mean is that you are truly supporting yourself and being present with what is instead of what you wish was.
So, be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with your creative self. Listen to and nurture your inner child. Try ways to release energy and any pent up feelings that you have, through your body, which is just a helpful thing in general, but it can also be really helpful to shake it out or go for a walk or dance a little bit before you're starting something creative.
If you need a little help in that department, my Feel Good Creativity Unchallenge is always there for you. It's five days of ridiculously easy, bite sized prompts for creativity and wellness, working together. There's always a link in the show notes for that. Lots of people have found it super helpful, and it's free.
Wherever you are right now is okay. Starting from where you are is always the perfect thing to do. Because where you are is where you are. I say this all the time. But I certainly need that repeated reminder, and maybe you do too.
So, please continue to be extra compassionate with yourself and how much you're able to do. You really do deserve to know that you're on your own team, instead of feeling like you're your own mean boss, like I have for many years. I tried to fire her. She comes back every now and then, but “mean boss me” is fired. She's not welcome here.
Be a Mog. If you haven't seen Spaceballs, you probably don't know what I'm talking about. But the John Candy character, his name is Barf, and he's a Mog, and he says, “I'm half man, half dog. I'm my own best friend.” It might sound cheesy to say that you're your own best friend. But honestly, that's what we all need, is to know that we have our own back. I'm rooting for you in all of this, all of your creative endeavors, everything.
So I'll be back soon, with new episodes and a new way to support the podcast which will have some fun bonus stuff. Stay tuned for that.
If you want to hear from me before then, definitely get on my email list, so you can get a Creative Wellness Letter from me, full of positivity and encouragement to support your creative life. I send those out every other week, and I'll still be hanging out on Instagram during this time, too - you can find me there at @rebecca_hass. We can still hang out on the internet until the podcast comes back. See you then, and until then, be well.
Pianist and composer