There have been many conversations around how to navigate these times, and to begin with, these were around managing lockdown and everything that brought. We are in the next chapter, and the conversations I am having with people have changed. They are now very much around how to navigate what is happening as a country.

1. The current situation is causing grief for a lot of people. Please do not feel that you have to suck it up and get on with life. Give yourself permission to feel what is coming up for you and what you feel you are missing.

2. I do think self-care shows up in so much of my writing, but these times take energy. Change takes energy, and there is a lot of that happening at the moment. What are you doing to top up those tanks?

3. Where are your boundaries at? Do they need a bit of a polish around how to say no to a meet-up that you feel may not serve you? Maybe you realise you haven’t got capacity or heartspace for it right now? Maybe a catch-up was going okay and then the conversation changes. What are your responses then? Sometimes it is simply to call it. “The conversation has moved on to covid again, can we change it?” Or you may have a few stories or things you want to share up your sleeve to redirect it away.

4. What about putting the request in from the start? “I would really appreciate a night off from covid and vaccinations. Can we all agree on that?”

5. How do you release frustrations? Whether it be having some ways in the moment to release what is coming up for you like breathing or going for a walk. But also ensuring you have a regular, what I call maintenance practice, an activity that you do to ensure things don’t build up. May be journalling, walking, the punch bag or similar.

6. What are the things that you can take control of right now? It can feel that there is a lot going on around us and it can leave us feeling quite powerless. There are always parts of our life that we can control. Focusing on them can help to tell the brain that right here, right now we are safe, and let it have a little rest for a while.

7. Make plans with options. What are the bits you do know? What is the time frame ahead of you that you can work towards? Talking to someone recently and we came up with the plan of what she wants her Christmas Day to look like. We talked about going ahead with her usual approach of popping a few extra Christmas goodies in the grocery shopping each week. We talked about how this sends a reassuring message to her brain and gives it something else to focus on.

8. Check in with which of your needs are not being met right now. Sometimes we can confuse our truth with unmet needs. How can you meet those needs in other ways?

9. Where are your values at? We can get pulled this way and that. We may see both sides. We may see one truth, whatever the case it can help to check in with our values. Two people could have the same values and it could mean
very different things to each of them, but it will be their truth, their core, their foundations that they want to navigate from. I really encourage you to spend time working on your values and get clear on what is really important for you and what that looks like.

10. We always have a choice. We get to choose whether we come from a place of love or fear. Which are you choosing?