I don’t know what it is in the last few weeks, but an awful lot of people are struggling all of a sudden. I mean (in the UK), with lockdown we’ve all been struggling a bit, but things suddenly seem to have amplified for a lot of us.
Friends with children who seemed to be sailing through lockdowns are at a whole new level of struggling with home schooling, older friends are showing real frustration at the limits of self isolation, friends in business I know to be really tough cookies are openly admitting that it’s really hard and letting the occasional tear escape on Zoom calls. And it’s rubbish and it’s brilliant…
Why? Well, obviously it’s not a good thing that so many of us are struggling, but the fact that we’re starting to admit it to each other lets us support each other, and starts the conversations off that maybe we’ve not been having until now. The:
- ‘it’s not just me?’
- ‘You feel like that too?’ and then the
- ‘This is how I’ve been managing that’, and the
- ‘I felt like that yesterday and might tomorrow, but today I’m having a good day, so let me help hold you up’…
And this is how we learn more coping mechanisms, how we get and give more support and become stronger….by talking to each other with honesty.
Maybe the most supportive thing we can do right now is to talk. Let down your guard with friends you trust and tell them if you’re struggling. Let them support you and in turn hold them up so they don’t fall over either.
And if you have something nice to say, say it, even if it feels a bit tiny. That person might only need a tiny thing to get them through the day…Yesterday a lady complimented me while I was out walking Percy on my ear warmer / headband type of thing. My sister had sent it to me as a present, despite my protestations that I couldn’t carry off that level of sparkles…it turns out that stranger thought I can. And her tiny comment made my day an a day. We all need building up sometimes
So my Wednesday tip is talk with honesty and with loveliness. Honesty because we can then be stronger together, and loveliness to bring smiles to get through it all. Because we will if we do it together.
