What does Wellness look like in a Pandemic?

I don't know about you, but despite the flower blossoms and spring sunshine in Victoria, the last few weeks have left me feeling absolutely exhausted. Even the cat is looking tired. (Actually, he's just thrilled that we are slowing down enough that he can finally nap on our heads.)

I tried to figure out the reason for this incredible fatigue. There are the obvious culprits- we are in the middle of a house renovation, we are homeschooling our very exuberant 6-year-old son, and we are both trying to figure out how to work from home in a house that has a dining room which doubles as a craft table and home-office desk. While the self compassionate side of me agrees, this really does sound tiring, I think there is more to it.

An April 6, 2020 article from Parasol Wellness Collaborative summed it up very nicely. We are living in a state of community trauma, in which the fear centres of our brains are scanning and continuously detecting threat. Threat in the empty grocery store shelves, the shuttered restaurants, in the person driving down the street with the face mask on, the plastic tape around the playgrounds, the daily news, and the socially distant line-ups to get into the stores. I watched a great skit of a woman from January 2020 talking to her April self. It's so true, if someone had told us 4 months ago that we would be working from our dining rooms with our children running rampant, unable to travel across the border or buy butter at the grocery store we wouldn't have believed it.

So as we acknowledge this unique, stressful and confusing situation we find ourselves in, it is so important that we allow ourselves compassion for however we are responding to this time. Whether we are in overdrive, trying to turn over every patch of grass on our property and boulevard to plant food or we are napping in the afternoon sun with our pets, we are all processing this and working through it in our own ways. Let us be kind to ourselves, our friends, family, neighbours and others and allow ourselves and those around us to care for ourselves in our own ways. We will get through this.