At first FREEDOM was stepped on so bad! I freaked out and had anxiety. I saw images of small rooms and places popping up in front of my eyes.. Being a very active person and an extrovert, struggled with it a lot.
I have got a small circle of family and friends which I love and not being able to be close to them was painful – like real physical pain. SHARING was stepped on so bad!
Work got quiet and the amount of to do’s and emails reduced and that was difficult too as ACHIEVEMENT was being stepped on this time… I created tasks and tried to do the things I was procrastinating for months but the resistance to do things was hard to digest.. I was not feeling challenged with work which felt very boring!
Everyday I was feeling very sad about the people losing their lives and suffering. My WELLBEING value was being crashed. I remember having a long stare at ‘4.000 deaths’ on the coronavirus dashboard, now it is ‘211.000+’. Ouch!
Then I told myself this cannot go on like this for another day because I was wasting my life/days. So I decided to honour my values.
During this time I was also conscious that I was appreciating the green, silence, people walking slower. I thought I can capitalise on this because there is something I like in this lockdown. Although I do not like routine I know routine and planning serve to something so I decided to take charge.
I’ve put together a daily routine and added the elements I know that engage me.
I started to enjoy knowing that I only eat home cooked food and the idea of daily exercise really suits me because I am normally sporty anyway. So the value of WELLBEING started to be honoured with these activities. Being grateful for being alive was already helping!
I’ve made a plan for work and all the tasks that have been a burden to me and I have been procrastinating. So sense of ACHIEVEMENT and being challenged got back on track. Having a routine was a nice challenge in itself!
I used some of my daily exercises to walk to my family’s and friends’ houses to say hello at a distance and set daily digital check-ins with other friends so I was able to honour SHARING and not feel so isolated.
Then I’ve realised that INTEGRITY was honoured for me when I heard (some of) the authorities say ‘we don’t know’ acknowledging the uncertainty.
With the silence on the street and people being more caring towards each other PEACE was honoured for me. This made a huge difference in my inner world.
I always believed that there is good in every bad. I choose to engage with the good. Hope you too.
Author: Melda Ekmen, Executive Coach at InsideOut
Insta: @lettheinsideout
