Good morning, dear!
I hope it is a good morning wherever you are, in your particular tiny space of Earth. I heard the birds chirping outside our window this morning. The trees are still bare, awaiting their spring clothes. (Yesterday was in the 70s, and Monday’s forecast is snow — uncertainty everywhere I look.)
The morning holds a sweet, open space of normalcy right now. Waking up under the covers, listening to the quiet, making out the soft shadows in the dark, or watching the beams of sunlight edging gently into the room — it’s the swell of the day without the Internet, before the brain cranks up the worry factory.
I want to hold onto this cup of morning time, even more precious than before.
I was listening to a podcast episode recently, a “Handling Chaos” series from a life coach, and she mentioned how when you feed your brain worrisome information, it starts going down all the worst-case-scenario hallways. Your brain is trained — for survival protection — to keep you in anxious alert, on guard for your life now while you are barefoot in the kitchen eating cereal or in your plaid pajamas on the couch. She recommended that for every hour you spend reading or listening to alarming news, you spend an hour doing something relaxing or joyful — what I interpreted as a 1:1 ratio of news:joy, to offset the constant feeling of doom.
It seems like we need a 1:4 ratio now of news:joy. Not that we shouldn’t read some of the millions of news stories, from good and well-researched sources. (This article explaining a strategy forward actually gave me hope: Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance.) We need understand what the experts are saying, and heed the scientific guidance — it is important, and our collective and individual actions will determine the course of the virus in our country. We also have to keep ourselves healthy, and calm, and even happy right now, as best we can. It’s good for our kids, good for our spouses, good for ourselves.
Dialing down the news stream can help. News alerts on your phone are each an anxiety prompt right now. The news will still be there when you have deliberate time later for it. Spend 5 minutes fiddling with your phone settings, and you can quiet those spikes of stress.
I’ve stopped reading the news in the late evening hours before I go to bed. When I do, my brain cranks into high gear on dystopian worlds. Sleep is then elusive, and that starts an unhelpful chain reaction. So yes, news, but earlier, when I have time to cleanse my brain with other things before bedtime.
How to cleanse my brain? How to fill the hours of non-news, when mainly at home, out of touch with so many of the usual friends, family, and delights?
I might listen to Poetry Unbound, a delightful twice-weekly tiny podcast that focuses on one poem. The latest episode is just 6 minutes about enduring friendship in a poem by Emily Dickinson.
I might take a long walk outside, in the trails near our house, and bring a book on trees to try to identify a few.
I might nestle into a pile of cookbooks, looking for new recipes that fit these times: warm, nourishing, magic from pantry items. I made shrimp and grits recently; it was delicious, and brought the summer to the table in ingredients that can be bought and saved for a month.
I might play music on the record player, and listen to “Star Wars” bombastic theme echo through our house, which delights our kindergartener.
How will you fill your 1:4 ratio? What will you intake, on the news side? What will you fill your body and soul with, on the joy side?
With love,
Brianne
p.s. I’m putting together a list of creative ways people and organizations are helping each other, to give us all ideas on what we can do right now. Please email me any suggestions at brianne@daybreaknotes.com. Thank you!
I had a typo in my address- need to work on the computer instead.
This is wonderful! Thanks for these words that give a new thought on coping. I love the thought of the Star Wars Theme giving your Kindergartner such joy.