Mindfulness and the Coronavirus

It's a properly tricky time right now, if you are anything like me you may flit between "it's unsettling, but try to stay calm, wash my hands, deliver cornflakes to Pam and Fred next door and attempt a semblance of normalcy!", to "a wild-eyed terror…why the heck IS there no toilet roll in every single supermarket across the land. What do people know that I don't, and can I survive on peanut butter and soya milk?"

We want to carry on, business as usual, in the least 'usual' time of our lives. We want a clear head when our minds are swimming with info overload, we have no opportunity to stand still and take stock before we are left reeling from the next shock announcement and must re-adjust our sails, again.

Living with all this uncertainty is hard, science has shown that we are hard-wired to push against it, it causes us a lot of stress. It's why we are seeing so many people grappling in the shopping aisles for that last pack of toilet roll in a bid to find something they can control.

As a Mindfulness practitioner, I'm offering up opportunities for you to practice living with this uncertainty, providing a means of support, and all the while hopefully, taking a bit of care over one another. A Mindfulness practice isn't for everyone, however if you are curious, dismissive, or somewhere in-between I 'invite' you to pause and ask yourself why you might be.

Are you too busy?

Is it not for you?

This might be exactly the time TO explore and stay open to what may arise.

If you do decide to give it a go, simply dip in and out whenever works best for you.

Ground-rules

• There isn't space for judgement, you need to park that at the door

• There is space for kindness, along with the acceptance that each of us does things differently - so if you find colleagues or friends using this app too, see rule one.

Just for today: Make space in your day for a few moments to reflect on what you are grateful for?

Who did something that made you smile, did you notice that the sun was shining, and what did it feel like? In fact it's not too late, go and flippin' well stand outside and feel the heat of the sun on your face/or the rain, listen to the noises all around you, ground your feet to the floor, take your shoes off!

Take a pause, and notice what you have to be grateful for, write it down. When you are in that moment of gratitude all you need to do is notice where you feel gratitude in your body, for each time you absorb it, you boost your body's ability to pull on that sense of positive well-being when the chips really are down.

The Corooner virus, sung to " stop spreading the germs…"

Peace out.