You Are Here

Apr 19, 2020

Art by: Anna Kövecses

Assess your pandemic persona and learn to navigate your emotional landscape with more certainty.

I would love for someone to roll out a map and confidently point to a spot that says “You are Here”. This feels like a reasonable request that would go a long way to calming my inner dialogue, and yet no map materializes. So I create my own, one that changes every day and the only compass I have is myself. Now, if I only remembered which way is north.

 


 

Who Am I?

You know that song from Chumbawamba, “I get knocked down but I get up again. They’re never going to keep me down.” Lately there are moments when I just want to call it a day. I admire you. If you have cleaned your house, started to learn Spanish and taken your workouts to the next level — celebrate the hell out of it. Personally, if I manage to get pants on, it is a huge win.

  • What activities feel familiar and easy?
  • When are you most calm and connected to yourself?
  • Where do you feel most relaxed?
  • What thoughts or feelings are you avoiding?
  • What activities might stretch you and why?
  • Where is the opportunity to adapt?

 

What am I Doing?

Every day I wake up and think, who is going to show up today? I practice physical distancing, I’m referring to the cast of characters in my head. Will it be the organized go-getter who repaired all the holes in my sweaters last week or the apathetic teenager who eats everything in the house and texts her friends to complain? Your guess is as good as mine.


How do I feel?

At the start of each coaching call I used to ask, “How are you doing?” Nowadays, that question results in a long pause and silence as clients try to actually feel how they are. Long gone are the replies of “fine” when clearly things are not fine and we do not feel fine. Indeed, we are at times rendered speechless at the thought of how we feel, let alone how to communicate it out loud.

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