Mental health here in Australia is at an all-time low with the past 18 months of living with COVID-19 being an experience most of us would prefer to forget.
Yet the pandemic continues and life is a river of emotions trying to drown us in these uncertain times with indecision and finger pointing, flowing down from political leaders in their daily media shows, to the people in the trenches battling to pay the bills and keep some semblance of sanity within the family.
If this feels like you, then you are not alone, not that that makes it any easier to swallow, but it reminds me that we need to look at our own lives and not compare them to others.
Spend more time with the good things in your life, the really important things like family or friends to obtain a clearer perspective of what you really “need” in your life to be happy, as opposed to what you “want”.
Once we learn to appreciate what we have, our level of anxiety and the fear of “what’s next” during these turbulent times will subdue.
A simple calming and grounding exercise is to sit in a chair with a straight back and both feet placed flat on the floor, close your eyes and take slow breaths in and out, in and out, concentrate on your breathing, feel the air flow in and out, in and out, relax……. Whether you do it for 30 seconds or 30 minutes, you will feel better for it.
Remember the tough times in our lives are only a small part of it and don’t define who we are or what we may achieve in the future.
If you need to improve your situation, focus on the task and process required to so, and not the outcome, because if COVID-19 has taught us one thing, that is many things in life are completely out of our control.
