If you’ve been around me lately, you’ve probably heard me use this phrase. I don’t even really know where it came from, but I do know that it has helped me a lot during this pandemic.
I’m trying to manage my expectations with myself, with others, and just in general!
I put an insane amount of pressure on myself, in everything that I do. I want to do things well and efficiently. But in this time of pandemic, it is hard to always stay motivated and productive. I’m trying to give myself some extra grace when I’m not always on point.
At the start of this pandemic, maybe 7 weeks ago now, I decided that I was going to focus more on self-care, productivity and having good routines. I wanted to exercise every day, eat healthy, walk the dogs daily, journal, reorganize my entire house, read, do art, blog a lot, learn to play the guitar, etc. But that’s nuts! Our lives literally just changed completely in the matter of 2 months – and I wanted to just pretend everything was fine and even increase my productivity and accomplishments.
Yeah, no. That’s not working.
Yes, I am doing a lot of self-care and I’m doing a little bit of everything I mentioned (besides the guitar), because I have to in order to stay sane. There is so much fear and sadness around us all the time; really heavy emotions that are exhausting to deal with. It’s unrealistic to think that I’m going to accomplish a lot when we’re all literally just trying to survive right now!
As a social worker, I often have folks sharing really deep and heavy experiences/thoughts/emotions with me. I support a lot of people at work and in general, which I absolutely love doing. I’m incredibly thankful that people trust me enough to share their souls with me. But I admit it does get heavy for me to carry too. I’ve found that I need to be even gentler with myself in these times, so that I can be in a good enough place to be a helpful support. As my old professor Jane said, if you do not care for yourself you will not be able to care effectively for others.
I have been actively trying to engage in self-care, but what I’m noticing is that it looks different day to day. Some days I eat healthy all day, exercise, walk the dogs, do some reading, journal, maybe do a little cleaning…. But other days I eat Oreos for breakfast, live in my sweats, and binge watch Tiktok videos and Netflix. Both days are fine, both kinds of self-care are fine! I’m really just trying to listen to what I need and honor that, in this time.
Then it comes to managing my expectations with others. I keep having to remind myself that we’re all going through really difficult times, and we’re processing and handling things differently and the best way that we can. Giving people grace is so important, because emotions are running high and we’re all riding the struggle bus right now. So in this time it’s even more important to show love, forgiveness and gratitude for the wonderful people in our lives.
So here’s to us, friends. We will get through this together. Let’s lean on each other, give grace and show love. And look for moments of joy – because life is still so so good!
Joy-filled Meanderings 