The last year has been tough. You can feel it in every community across the world. It’s like a fog, palpable, it hangs from all of us. Heightened emotional states, like soldiers going to war. The uncertainty of the future and an enemy we can’t see. Pandemic.
You would think we would unite against such a common enemy. I think in the beginning we did. Amongst the empty supermarket shelves, we clapped for the NHS and rallied around for our neighbours. Zoom became a noun rather than verb seen mainly in comic books or pop art posters. Our streets were empty, businesses closed and daily updates from Downing Street were frightening as the numbers started to rise.
Over a year later we have had a series of restrictions and lockdowns and our behaviours have had to change. Along with it we have a miracle of modern medicine in the form of a vaccine. Conspiracy theorists, no longer confined to looking for ET in Nevada. New concerns of micro-chipping and 5G signals. We have seen mass protests, issues of inequality, climate change and the safety of women. As food banks began to be overwhelmed a premier league footballer stepped in to feed Britain’s children where Government had failed. Failures to act, absence of track and trace, contracts to wealthy friends, always claiming to be following the science when the science suits the agenda. An NHS now stretched to breaking point, a 1% pay raise for all their efforts during this horrendous time.
The year had taken its toll. Grief for the people we have lost. The sleepless nights as our businesses struggle to survive. Our homes became the workplace, the classroom, home gym and pub. We sanitised till our skin fell off and collectively made Jeff Bezos a trillionaire.
Now as we emerge from most of the limitations under the success of the vaccine programme, we encounter traffic light travel systems and concerns over variants. Keeping our very British stiff upper lip, we are all smiles and laughs as we hug our loved ones. We head out to the beaches, grab a coffee or a quick pint, trying to forget the trauma of the past 18 months. But we are all changed by this. We will carry the strain and distress for months maybe years to come. We were locked away, confronted by our demons and fuelled by fear. I am not afraid to admit it has been one of the toughest times for me and my mental health. And as we move through still uncertain times, we need to move past the stigma surrounding mental health issues and learn to talk openly about not being ok. As I have reconnected with my friends and family there has been a mutual honesty, if you really prod a bit deeper in the conversation. The struggles felt over the last year. We are connected through our experiences of this pandemic. We have all felt the length and breadth of human emotions on this rollercoaster… and that’s normal. The constant tiredness, the inability to work, struggling with the family, impatience with strangers, worrying about productivity and performance. Our brains have hit overload and as we eagerly edge back towards ‘normal’ we should reassess whether this was really working for us and our mental health in the first place.
For me, I have learnt a lot of the pressure I felt before was put there by myself. Negative thought patterns, always thinking I need to fill every bit of time, competitive natured. If I worked harder, I would be more successful but instead I was just constantly hitting burn out. Teamed with chronic health problems, the ‘zero to 100’ method I was living pre pandemic was just leaving me frustrated with my creative and physical progress. Not much kindness for myself and that has been my biggest lesson in this time of the virus. More kindness for myself, for the people around me and for the stranger in the street, because not one of us has got through this the past year unscathed. We walk on common ground now and kindness could be the foundation where we grow a better future.
For help with mental health please find links below:
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness. – Naomi Shihab Nye 1952