Okay, let’s get real.
Lockdown was a total shit-show for all of us and we were all expected to just deal with new emotions, new stresses, new work and living situations and basically just be okay with our lives being flipped totally upside down.
This week I had a wonderful chat with a client and good friend and while speaking about future plans, fears, lockdown and a whole host of other random topics when a thought popped up in my head.
Okay, bear with me on this one…
During lockdown, did you, possibly for the first time in a very long time, think about your mortality?
Did the thought cross your mind that… you might die?
Okay, let me explain where I’m going with this.
You see, many of us – myself included – were living our lives in a very scripted, routine like manner and the worst is, we didn’t even know it!
Then suddenly we were told to stay at home and we were then relentlessly bombarded with words like flu, pandemic, contagious, strain, variant, infection and death.
We were told that many people will die. And we were told this again and again and again.
Now whether you like it or not, this kind of dramatic change to your environment and then being bombarded – almost brainwashed – that you face death and a bad, evil, nasty virus all around you will make you think.
And staying at home, not being able to do anything, leaves you with a lot of time to think and reassess a lot of things.
Let me get to the point.
I know this is 100% true for me but do you think that, for you personally, the pandemic and the threat of death – however real the whole Covid thing was for you – made you:
- question your life?
- question what you do?
- question what is important?
- question who is important?
- forgive yourself for mistakes you’ve made?
- revisit old hopes and dreams?
It’s common for us to, after a very traumatic event, see life in a different way and adjust our attitude, actions and levels of gratitude.
Now you might not see the pandemic and lockdown as a traumatic event in the same you might see a car crash or near death experience, but it did affect us.
Yes, there are ‘real men’ and some people out there who will say it didn’t affect them at all – they are wrong – but let’s reframe this whole thing quickly.
Yes, the pandemic and lockdown fucked us all over.
Badly.
But you now have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reassess your job, your future, your actions, your relationships, your health, your life.
You can think about things you haven’t before and, more importantly, you can actually voice any hopes and dreams and plans or personal goals you might not have felt comfortable with before March 2020.
And why?
Because you can blame the pandemic for making you look inside yourself and do some soul searching!
Even if you didn’t or haven’t yet – but I kinda think if you’re reading this newsletter you would’ve had a moment or two of introspection during the last year and a half – do it now!
So yeah, that’s all from a conversation I had over dinner and a bottle of red wine. Pretty awesome right?
My guest and I both shared some of what we personally will be doing, and want to do, moving forward and it’s these types of conversations that makes you think even more positive thoughts and helps you to come up with even more great ideas and goals and dreams.
We should all have more conversations – real conversations – with red wine! 😉
So, I am now giving you permission to flip all the negative bullshit and stress and anxiety and uncertainty we’ve all gone through on it’s head and use it to take a step towards… something!
Say what you’ve been wanting to say.
Start planning what you’ve been wanting to plan.
Start doing the things you’ve been wanting do.
Start living your own life the way you’ve always wanted to!
Just do it. (And blame the pandemic.)
You can thank me later! 😉
G.
