Friends, we’ve reached the end of August. Though much of this year has been spent at home, social distancing, it’s hard to believe how quickly it’s passing. I don’t know about you, but I usually plan projects, trips, and events to help pass the time. Only this year is proving that time moves independently from all activity.
Today, we’re closing out this month’s conversation about building routines, by talking about something we often don’t account for:
How hard it is to build routines when you can’t focus.
So much has happened this year that it’s been difficult for any of us to feel grounded. In many ways the foundations of how we live our day to day lives have been shaken. Between the pandemic, racial injustice and its fallout, conspiracy theories, the economy, and now the election—there is so much externally weighing on us. But for many of us, that’s not all we’re concerned about.
All of us are facing some form of personal difficulty.
A few weeks ago, I found out the tumors in my dad’s brain are growing again. They are not responding to treatment. So my dad’s next step was to spend everyday last week driving up to Boston to get a more targeted radiation. His oncologist said if he didn’t get the radiation, his health could decline quickly.
It feels like I’ve been in a fog ever since.
Correction, it feels like I’ve been in a fog since his diagnosis in January. Then COVID made it much worse. And now this latest news about my dad has made the fog inside my brain as thick as pea soup.
It’s difficult to move forward.
It feels impossible to focus.
Only, I know I am not alone. I know you too have had moments this season where you’ve been carrying so much mentally and emotionally—it’s been hard to see your way through. Here, on the blog, we’ve been talking about building and maintaining healthy routines to keep us strong. Yet sometimes, it really is enough to just make it through the day.
Sometimes, it really is enough to just make it through the day.
Often, when self-help guru’s talk about routines, it is as if they are giving us the secret to living the life we’re supposed to be living. When really, they are giving us steps that will only keep us striving for a life that looks good on the surface. The “picture perfect life” we see on Instagram, TV, and Pinterest never tells the whole story. In their photoshopped, edited and filtered images, they rarely show the in between moments. The times where what we most need is to practice a self care that will center us and help us find focus again.
That is why today, I am sharing a free new resource with all my email friends. It is entitled Six Ways To Find Focus In A Pandemic. In it you will find six foundational self care practices that will help ground you in your personal reality. Doable routines that will help center you in the spaces and relationships you are meant to focus your life and do your most important work.
None of us were meant to push through the heavy fog that has descended upon us this year. We can’t ignore it. We can’t deny the effect it is having on us. But through these healthy practices, we can discover the clarity we need to find our way through.
