How To Live Through Corona – Interview Series

It is exactly four more weeks, one month before I go back to the office and work my day job from there after something like three months of working from home. For me this time has been absolutely eye-opening, I have had so many realisations about my life, what I want, what I don’t want. For instance, I started this blog during the lockdown. I managed to realise a goal which was to come out of this lockdown physically and mentally stronger than I was before. I have written about working out on a regular basis and actually worked out more than before which I shared in my Instagram stories. And while this might sound a little show-offy, it was mainly a very strong and necessary method to stay sane. My meditation, yoga and running habits have grown and I also took on board a few other exercises. I also told my partner that we better come out of this as a stronger couple than we were before. I knew that this would be a very tough time for many couples. So, we put a lot of effort to make this time very valuable for our relationship.

Nevertheless, it has been a very difficult time for all of us.

While the first few weeks of confinement were a novelty and nearly a little bit exciting (I was curious to see how I would react and function in a situation like this. Would I panic? Would I be calm? How would I respond to things?), the last few weeks have been particularly difficult as I went through a more or less existential crisis. But both of these phases were extremely valuable because I learnt a lot about myself.

After speaking to a couple of friends about their experiences, I realised that many of them have gone through similar phases. Some of them shared with me their excitement about the opportunity that this lockdown has presented them with and all of them said that they have been learning a lot about themselves. Some have actually taken quite some substantial decisions about their life or have been making very deep observations about how they are living their life.

But what many of us are experiencing now is fear

Fear of the reality of the realisations that we have made. Once you realise that you are not happy with your job or partner, it is very challenging to unthink that. Once you realised this reality, you either act on it or become unhappy, frustrated. You may have realised that the job you have been doing no longer fulfills you or have made some other discovery about your life. And you may have realised that community and spending time with friends and family is a lot more important than you ever realised before. These are all interesting thoughts. And the question is how we are going to move on. “Moving on” because we are not moving backwards, we cannot go back to how things were before. We need to take initiatives to change our lives, the way we live, into a more intentional and holistic direction. For some this may happen on a very personal, individual level and for others this happens on a community level, for others on an environmental level. Values have changed and become stronger, more defined. And you may have realised a few things that you want to introduce into your life after the lockdown. The question is how. And that is also partially where the fear comes from – knowing a change is required but not knowing how to realise it. Or we may fear the idea of change in general. As humans we are creatures of habits and routines. Change is often not welcome.

What about you?

You may have made a realisation about your life. Did you have a potentially life-changing realisation during the lockdown? About your life, your relationships or your values? And how are you planning to act on that and how are you planning to introduce changes into your life after Corona? Maybe you started some beautiful new rituals and habits during the lockdown and wonder how to continue them after this.

The interview series

These are some of the questions I have been pondering and I asked a couple of people to answer them for me, from their perspective. As today marks four weeks before I go back to the office, I am starting this series today, sharing interviews over the next three weeks. Each interview I will follow up with a separate blog post in the same week, diving a little bit deeper into a few topics that the interviewee talked about and that struck a chord with me. You will be reading about very personal definitions of what mindfulness is. You will be reading about what people struggle with, how they tackled those challenges, what changed in their mindfulness routine – if they had one previously. You will be reading about a concept called “Mudita”. You will be reading about the common feeling of loss as all interviewees struggled with this difficult time being separated from friends and family.

After sharing the interviews and the more in-depth blog posts, I will conclude the series with a post solely on how you can continue the positive changes that you have made to your life during this time after the lockdown. When reality hits again. Because this is something that everyone is struggling with right now. This is a never-before seen global event. The world has come to a hold – well, figuratively. And this is a crucial time, a gift, an opportunity to shift things. Yet I get the impression that many people don’t quite understand how big this is. What is more, you might be punishing yourself for emotions, sensations, feelings that you had during this time. But you don’t need to do that. No-one EVER had to go through a time like this; it is entirely new to human history. So, don’t be too hard on yourself. This is a time to practice love. Some mindfulness practices can absolutely help you with that. (And if you don’t like the idea of practicing mindfulness because you don’t like sitting still or feel unsafe or weird when closing your eyes – read this article). Mindfulness is easily misunderstood as a range of activities that you do to enhance happiness and good feelings only and to avoid negative experiences. But that is not at all what mindfulness is about. Mindfulness is about getting better at life and better at handling unpleasant situations and better at savouring the good ones without getting too attached. If you practice meditation, it is not about getting better at meditation. It is about getting better at life.

Why an interview series?

As I spoke to friends and family and their experience with the lockdown, I learnt a lot more about them and myself. I learnt more than ever that everyone struggles with difficult times and that fear can cripple us if we don’t know how to grab it by the hand, thank it for its wish to protect us and then gently catapult it out into the universe. Reading the submitted interviews was a wonderful experience, I did not know what to expect but they turned out to be a lot more than I imagined.

So, I hope you will enjoy this series. And please don’t be shy – do let me know how this resonates with you. If you find it any useful. Or if you would like to hear more about a particular topic.

Watch this space.

The first interview will come on Wednesday.

Images by:

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Photo by fotografierende on Unsplash

Photo by Luisa Brimble on Unsplash

Photo by Tachina Lee on Unsplash