Thriving in the Corona Virus Atmosphere — PCP 034

Today we’re talking about taking care of yourself during the Corona Virus (Covid-19) and how to make good choices for yourself and keep the faith.

Grab my schedule to help your family stay in a routine right now:

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In this episode:

• Acknowledging that it’s hard
• The time to “do” is over
• Our facade of control is crumbling
• Using faith
• Focusing on the positive
• Finding ways to “do you” (and my weird way to do it)
• Connecting with others

Items Mentioned:

• The book Deep & Simple
• My Positive Self-Care Post
• My Corona Virus Schedule
• Gratitude Episode
• How I use my planner episode

Other things that might interest you:

• Corona Virus in Pregnancy
• Looking for faith at this time — I really love this video that reminds us all we CAN do.

Producer: Drew Erickson

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Transcript:

Hilary Erickson 0:00
Hey guys welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today’s episode is gonna be a little different. I have to admit that I had a Disneyland episode planned for today. If I followed my normal schedule (you guys know how much I love a schedule) and I just decided that that didn’t make any sense today. So here we are less than a week before this podcast is supposed to go up and I’m recording a new episode. So today’s episode we’re going to talk a little bit about thriving in the corona virus which doesn’t make any sense because you know, I’m a nurse and it’s clearly Yeah, anyway, thriving in the corona virus let’s untangle it

Welcome to the Pulling Curls Podcast where we untangle everything from pregnancy, parenting, home routines, even some family travel. Because, heavens knows, our lives are tangled I’m your host Hilary Erickson.

Okay guys, so I have kind of joked with friends like asking how we’re doing I’ve had a lot of friends reach out which is so nice because I’m a nurse saying hey, what is it like to be at the hospital and have to say last week, the hospital was fairly normal. Hopefully it stays that way. Right? But I’ve noticed in myself that it’s been really hard for me and I’ve been really caught off guard by that we have food storage. We’ve always had food storage. We have plenty of supplies. You know, this is something that we’ve kind of planned for not really the coronavirus, but like having an emergency is something that we’ve kind of planned and prepared for if you guys don’t know I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in emergency preparedness is one of our top things. In fact, we have a post coming up about it. But it’s a little bit more about like preparing for a fire or stuff like that. So stay tuned for that one. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that this is hard, it is hard to suddenly change your routine. I’m a work at home mom. Most days I’ll be going in the hospital also. But I have my kids home, and my husband home and we’re all home all the time. And that is hard. It’s a huge change in routine. I’ve had things that I was really looking forward to cancelled and my kids have had things that they were looking forward to that they’ve had to cancel and that’s hard. And I think we need to say yep, this is hard. I think it’s important to say that in labor, yes, this is hard. And so when you’re going through hard things, I think it’s great to say yes, this is hard. And also maybe think about why it’s hard. And I mentioned kind of why it was hard for me. But I want you to think about in your own life, why is this been difficult for you? And I think it’s gonna be different for everybody. One of the things I sort of feel guilty about is I’ve always thought, wouldn’t it be great if we were all home with like nothing to do for an extended period of time? And apparently, it wouldn’t be that great. So I sort of feel guilty for the fact that I maybe don’t love every minute of what’s going on at our house. So I don’t know if anybody feels that way. But I thought I would mention it as well. Okay. So we’ve seen all these people at stores going crazy buying toilet paper, and tons of groceries and stuff like that. And I feel like people keep wanting to do something, when in reality, now we’re at a point where we just kind of have to stop. And our mission is to just stand still. And that is really hard in our society we are and it’s really hard for me, maybe it’s not hard for you. But it’s really hard for me to do nothing to kind of have a period of indecision, where we just pause and hold our breath and see what happens. And so for me, that’s been really hard and I’ve noticed that kind of online people keep thinking well, I need to go to the store to get this And maybe you don’t maybe you just need to stay at home and I’ve had that feeling inside myself. Maybe we should go to the store.

Is that hard for anybody else? Anyway, just something I was thinking about. Also, I think we’ve seen our facade of control crumble. And personally, I have seen my facade of control crumble a few times, my husband got laid off in 2011. I just felt like we would have those same jobs forever, not true. And then a few years later, the job he ended up going to he just didn’t end up loving and he ended up leaving it. And then we were again in a period of kind of like a pause, right, and pausing can be really difficult. And so I think we all need to kind of let go of the fact that we really have control over much in this world. And I don’t know if you guys are churchy. You guys know that I’m churchy. But the reality is, is we don’t really have a lot of control in anything. And as a nurse, I realized that definitely, there are crazy things that happen. Weird accidents, just random things horrible things happen. We really don’t have any control and now all of a sudden it’s just kind of horrible things are kind of happening to all have us and I wouldn’t say these are horrible. It’s just different things are happening to us than what we had planned on. I’ve also been thinking a lot about how fear and faith can’t coexist. And I’ve read some articles talking about that. And I’ve kind of felt a little bit guilty with the fear that I’ve been feeling. And I know lately, I haven’t been feeling so much fear because I’m like, we just need to wait this out and see what happens. There’s no reason to project what’s going to happen into the future because I don’t really think anybody can at this point, but I have had to be honest with myself that disappointment and faith can also coexist and there have just been things that have been canceled things that my kids have had being canceled that have been really hard for us and that’s okay to feel the disappointment. That’s not the same as fear, but for me, I’ve kind of had to like separate out those two and be like, this is okay to feel like this, but it’s not okay to just sit on my couch and wonder if we’re all gonna die and the economy’s gonna collapse. One of my favorite books is called deep and simple by Beau Loza. It is actually Mr. Rogers his favorite book, and I guess he used to hand it out to people Frequently, and he has an interesting analogy. This is in the faith chapter. I’ll link to that book in the show notes if you guys are interested. So here’s just a little quote out of it. He says, We’re like a coal miner carrying his light on his cap, whenever he arrives, it’s light enough for him to see, he doesn’t look ahead and say, but it’s dark up there, he knows that by the time he gets there will be light. This light by which we see comes from inside of us. So it makes more sense to work on brightening our light and keeping batteries strong than to worry about what’s in the dark up ahead. The light only exists here wherever we are never there and it only exists now never then faith accepts this fear refuses to. I really like that analogy. And sometimes I just think about myself as a coal miner and that the things around me are light and I can see that things are okay wide right around me right now. The fact that I don’t know what things are gonna look like in the future, makes it difficult. And so I have to really try and focus on the things that are around me right now. One of the other things I’ve been doing which is Always do is try and focus on the positive. Now I write down gratitudes. In my planner every morning, I have a gratitude episode where I talk about that. And I think that that is really important. But it’s not sustaining me all day right now. Because with having my kids home and just things being very different. And also, I do look at the news maybe a couple times every day, and it can be disappointing and a little bit scary. I did log into my stock market the other day, and that was a little bit scary, but I’m in the stocks for the long run. And I need to remind myself for that I don’t have retirement anywhere near in my future. So it has been really good to look for positive things that are happening in other people’s lives and also to find the positive things that people are doing. I’ve seen a lot of millennials coming up with ways to deliver groceries to the elderly. I’ve seen teenagers making apps so that they can babysit for other people because there are people who need childcare during this time nurses. I’m so grateful that my kids are old enough to stay home by themselves right now. I do not know what I would have done back in the day when I had little tiny people and I still need to go to work. My work is not one that can be done at home. So finding the positive in other people’s lives has really helped. And also taking a moment to say that is such a positive, happy thing. I really appreciate that instead of just being like, Oh, that’s nice. And moving on has really helped me in this whole time. Now, one of the things that’s hard is that I am home with kids and a husband all the time, and you guys might be experiencing that too. And it is different than it has been before. There’s no playdates. There’s no school, and I’m having a hard time focusing on me for a portion of the day. I also have other things that I need to get done in any snippets of time that my kids are not bothering me. And so I need to be really mindful in those timeframes to take some time for myself doing something that I enjoy, I find that the things that I was looking forward to are being cancelled and so I kind of feel like I don’t really have anything to look forward to and even the things that I am sort of looking forward to I don’t want to get my hopes up because I’m afraid they’re gonna get canceled, which again, isn’t a good thing, but I probably shouldn’t spend hours and hours thinking about my cruise this summer, because who knows if it’s going to happen. So I’m having to find the little things that I can enjoy maybe some YouTube channels that you like or sitting down with your family to watch a movie, there are things that you can do to really fill up your own cup, be it alone or with your family, just make sure that you’re doing those things. Even as a busy mom, one of the things that I do is I actually put my headphones on at like full blast with a song that I really like. And I almost I don’t know if you guys watch Stranger Things, but remember how she has to go into the tub in order to like see her stuff I sometimes feel like doing that puts me in my own little zone and just kind of resets my brain, which is kind of weird, but do what works for you. That’s just something that I found maybe I think that I’m not even here when I’m doing that. So that helps. Finally I would share the good that’s happening in your life. It’s great to also share that you’re struggling but also share the things that you’re noticing around you that are good the things that you’re doing that you find positive shared on social media. I have a post about the 12 things you can do for self care during the coronavirus. And you guys can check those out. But connecting is definitely one of the things that’s most important. I’ve been trying to call my parents every day and check in on them. They’re not local. And so checking in with them that way has been really nice. And also texting friends and just seeing how they’re doing. We’re not going to be seeing each other for a while, but we can still communicate. The thing is this type of quarantine really wasn’t possible until just the last few years, we’d couldn’t order groceries online, we couldn’t connect with people online. Our school couldn’t connect with us in the way that the school has been to say that it’s canceled. And so we really do have a lot of benefits that make this type of saving our communities possible. But at the same point, we need to remember to use those resources. And then also remember all the little things that aren’t technological that can save us at this time too.

So that’s today’s podcast, it’s a little bit different. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I would love it. If you would comment on the post that’s on my blog. This is Episode 34. If you’re looking for podcasts, episodes, but I’d love to know what’s working for you share it on social media tag me I’d love to see it. I love seeing positive things at this time and I hope this has made you feel like you could maybe take some action and really thrive during this time. I really have always wished that our family could be together without distraction and sometimes Yeah, you don’t want what you wish for. So sometimes it’s just so much it’s so much of my family. If I just could have had a few days I think I would have liked it.

So I hope you guys arethriving during the coronavirus. I hope it doesn’t last long. I hope and I’ve been praying I hope if you are a person of faith that you have been praying for it also I really believe that faith and hope can help us come through this unscathed and really, that will be the thing that helps us to thrive. So until next time, I hope you have a tangle free day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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