You Are Doing Your Best To Cope And Survive, It’s Enough. You Are Enough.

 

Deer in the headlights as I grasped all the sequels of what COVID-19 pandemic has brought us and the government-imposed community quarantine and social distancing.

As a sword to fight for productivity, certain people are being accustomed to working from home, engaging to webinars, whilst some are having their perfect fitspiration to tone up, or catching up with a multitude of books, decluttering storage and closets, and even trying new recipes like dalgona coffee or something that’s all over TikTok, so to speak.  I have even read and shared that Sir Isaac Newton had to work from home in 1665 as the University of Cambridge temporarily closed due to the bubonic plague, the time used for him to develop calculus and theory of gravity.

These whirlwind of productive activities are the onslaught feed of the internet nowadays for people to spend their extra time in a good manner. I’m in awe that I so admire people from pushing this through and taking the advantage of quarantining. What an impeccable perseverance which serves as a rebuttal to the overabundance of time and scarcity.

However, I feel extra pressured to keep hustling and fill my time to complete and finish the tasks I have. For instance, there are times that I take a glance at the finalization of my thesis in graduate school and later disrupted that I can’t seem to get it done for the past month since the enhanced community quarantine has been imposed. And I always tend to take a break and do some other things which can lighten my mood for a while or rest. Moments that I feel like I’m procrastinating or having an instinctive physiological response to take fight or flight. But I guess it’s something that I should not be invalidated for.

We are all going through this global pandemic phenomenon, and we are being inundated with tons of anxiety-inducing news about coronavirus update which really affects our mental health. We are stuck in this traumatic experience which adds to our emotional discomfort and unsteadiness. It’s indeed hard to process when we’re still in the battle, so it’s really not a bad idea to give some grace and be more gentle with ourselves during this time. It’s going to take some time, but that doesn’t mean that we fail as a human. Plus we still have to work on our regular routines. I’m not saying that we don’t need to exert hard work, but we also need to change our rhythms. It’s okay to just sit on a couch for a day, binge watch your favorite K-Dramas and movies on Netflix, play games, answer some gibberish, listen to music, discover obscure talents, browse on your feeds, connect with family and friends, support our frontliners, reflect, pray, meditate and most importantly take care of your mental health as we are all coming from different hurdles as we cope up during this quarantine.

Yes, we are all adjusting, sometimes it’s okay not to be productive, what we can do is just to trust the process. Don’t let other people define how you manage your time, we are no Isaac Newton, but we can be enough being ourselves to cope and survive. Live anyway, this too shall pass.

 

 

Take Solitude To Take Time For Mental Health, It Won’t Make You Fragile But It Will Keep You Strong

It’s a cliché for everyone to equate people who tend to be alone as dispirited, downcast, or anti-social. And for some, it’s an agony for them seeing people who desire in the solitude state. But the antipode, that state can be really putting someone in good shape for some aspects.

As for my mantra, I can be alone for as long as I like, doesn’t mean that I’m being lonely or depressed, it’s just that I can get fully accustomed to the feeling as I fully embrace it. Actually, choosing to be alone is very essential for my self-realization thus, it yields me to relax my mind to its utmost tranquility until I get motivated. Into the bargain, being alone also taught me a lot of valuable lessons as I live.

I established doing things I really enjoy. Whenever I’m constantly with the amity of other people, I always have to adjust in order for everyone to feel relished and it’s fine. But if the circumstance won’t go their way, I tend to apologize for their agitated feelings. There are also instances that I got to second-guess if I have done something exasperating for them to feel disgruntled. Egocentric it may sound but I want to yearn that the things I want should not be compromised. Unless I’m on my own where it’s easy to actually do everything I set my heart on. Whenever I got to do things I really enjoy, I felt freedom, and from loving it, there’s the feeling of happiness.

I ceased to deem for everyone’s validation. In the end, it will always be me to utter final words to every deed I’ll make. Yes, I value others’ opinion but I value more about what I think and how I would feel after. At times, I ought to ask for a bit of advice from a colleague or a friend. But, I always try to ask myself first, I guess, the more I do it alone I develop resiliency. I became sturdy to rely more on my decisions no matter what verdict people may give, whether right or wrong as long as I have pushed myself to be really capable of. As they say, If I live up from people’s approval, I’ll definitely die from their rejection.

Being in the solitude state helped me build a vigorous relationship with other people. Spending time alone for some time succored my mind to focus and recharge my brain. And the time consumed in solitude state gave me a substantial appreciation for myself. It also let me realize how valuable it is to have a relationship with other people where I’m unmindful before I have actually done my “me-time”. Upon rebooting myself I was able to really find what my desires are in life and create better choices to decide who I want to spend my life with. I know that at times I choose to take the road less traveled but I’m not going to walk alone.

And as for everyone, in the state of being alone, various things will be taught, and the greatest learning I’ve taken from it is that I have proven myself and let my cells dance knowing that I can do things that I have never imagined that I’m capable of, I was able to really know and be sure of who I really am in the midst of solitude.

Take solitude to take time for mental health — it won’t make you fragile but it will keep you strong. The sure thing is you’ll also find answers.