One of the things that I’m finding most concerning at this time is that we seem to be so focused on fear and the things not to do, rather than things we can do to take care of ourselves and our wellbeing, both now and going forward into the new ‘normal’, whatever form that might take.
As someone who strongly believes that our words play a major part on the state of our mental and physical wellbeing, I much prefer to focus on positive language and to steer clear of negating phrases. After all, this is how affirmations work! They’re most uplifting when they’re in the present tense, positive and something that the user can relate to, believe in, and really feel in every cell of their body.
Unfortunately, the reverse is also true, so when we repeatedly hear negatives, this is what we begin to experience. A normally cheerful and upbeat friend of mine told me recently that she had to stop listening to the radio while working as she realised that by the end of the day the constant reporting on coronavirus had left her feeling very anxious.
Thankfully she was aware of this and took steps to avoid it happening again in the future, but often we can experience a subtle chipping away, with a slow change over time meaning that we might not realise what has left us feeling so low, and with a background sense of fear or worry. We can then begin to accept this as our new ‘norm’, and assume that this is just how the world is.
But being in this state is harmful to our wellbeing. It creates stress in the body as it puts us into a state of ‘fight or flight’. Being in this state for short periods of time is fine, and our bodies can even benefit from short bursts of adrenalin and cortisol, however when this condition becomes chronic, it can lead to dis-ease.
What, then, can we do to better support ourselves?
Firstly, I’d like to reassure you that our bodies are amazing, intelligent things. They carry a blueprint of how they are designed to work at their best, and ‘all’ we need to do to facilitate this is to help them to be in a state of balance. Once this state of balance is reached, the body knows how to make the journey back to wellbeing.
Sounds simple – and it is – but it’s not always easy for us to achieve.
Tomorrow I’ll begin to explore some simple practices that we can use to support ourselves in this process of tuning in to our balance.