A master class in letting go
How to survive and thrive in self-isolation
Live through this and you won't look back.
-Stars
According to Public Health, in Quebec, about a quarter of the population has been infected with COVID since December1. My kids are included in that number, and although I never tested positive, I think I am too.
Everyone is ok, and no one got very sick during the 2 weeks we were isolating. Honestly, if it wasn’t because there’s a pandemic out there and we have home tests… That is to say, if these were pre-COVID times and I was just going off symptoms, I would have kept my oldest home for a day or two, and that would have been that. That’s how not sick we were. We were lucky. Not to get too into COVID, but during this wave, twice as many kids under the age of 10 have been hospitalized as in all four previous waves, combined2. So yes, we were lucky and I’m grateful no one got sick.
Still, COVID impacted our lives bigly, as one guy would say.
In 6 weeks, my children attended 4 days of school in-person. Four.
The custody arrangement I have was adjusted temporarily, to prevent more people from getting infected. This meant that the kids didn’t hang out with their dad for two weeks - and usually they don’t go more than 5 days without him.
The above also means that I was solely responsible for two young children at home who had no school to attend, no playdates to distract them, and nowhere to go.
I was unable to go to work in-person, and so I ended nine years at my previous job remotely, on a Google Meet. Surreal. This also means that I did all of the above while working from home.
You know the thing I’ve said before about going out for a walk every day? That didn’t happen. I wasn’t allowed off my property.
This all sounds pretty crummy, if not dire. But you know what? I knew this would happen; I told the kids this would happen: I look back fondly on those 2 weeks. Two crazy weeks at the end of January 2022, which, by the way, also happens to be my birthday. That is correct. This all happened on my birthday.
Why and how can I look back on it fondly? Other than our good fortune, healthwise, here is how:
Perspective. Even when I didn’t know how long it would last, I reminded myself that, in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t be that long. In a year from now, I knew it wouldn’t loom so large.
Intention & acceptance. I resolved from the very beginning to just accept the results of each test and their consequences, without clinging to or “needing” it to go a certain way. This actually wasn’t very hard for me, but if it had been, I would have meditated on it.
I remembered an important part of yoga practice: relaxing the parts that don’t need to be working so hard. Pretend you’re putting on mascara. Did your mouth just move? Are your shoulders relaxed? It’s normal that when we make an effort or concentrate on one part of our body, other parts tense up. Most of the time, I bet most people don’t notice. But once you do notice, you can practice relaxing those other parts that aren’t really needed right now. I do this in the dentist’s office while my mouth is open. I scan my body and relax any part that isn’t directly involved and that doesn’t need to be so tense. This the core of how I learned to love COVID3 and let go and I’ll get into below.
Self-compassion. I meditated A LOT during those 2 weeks, and not because I was relaxing so much! Without daily walks or even much alone time, it was practically my only source of self-care, and I needed to attend to the very urgent voices of my inner critics (they are many). Doing this allowed me to do #3 above.
I want to be clear here that it was COVID that offered me the master class in letting go, and not I who am offering it. COVID in our house gave me a really intense and unexpected chance to put into practice a lot of things I’ve been working on for a while. As I said to a friend who was in isolation at the same time, it was as if the virus was saying, “if you thought you had learned to let go… Here ya go.” Boom.
Lowering the bar way, way down
So, when the first test came back positive, I let everything go. I told myself right away that my main focus was going to be my relationship with my kids, and that every single other thing was a notch below. So, in the yoga analogy, the relationship was the muscle that required effort, and all other muscles should relax as much as possible.
I would do what I could with work, but I wasn’t going to set targets for myself. If I couldn’t handle it, I would take a sick day.
I wouldn’t clean the house or tidy up if it meant spending my free time doing that instead of connecting with the kids.
I had to order groceries online, which is more expensive than the way I usually shop, so I just accepted that I would have to pay more in groceries for an undetermined period of time.
I would not insist on any school-type work being done.
I would not be enforcing strict screen-time limits.
The bar had never been lower, and I was fine with it.
When in doubt, say “yes”
On the second day of isolation, it was my birthday and I had already asked for a personal day that I was *supposed to* spend taking my son to his first ever downhill ski lesson. Instead, I decided to have a (secret) “yes day”. There is a movie called Yes Day that my kids love, where the parents agree to everything the kids want for one day. I didn’t tell them that’s what I was doing, but I knew that my intention was just to say yes, as much as I reasonably could, to every request they made. Turns out, they mostly watched videos. But it was great practice for me. I said yes to things I normally would have said no to, like playing a video game with my 6 year old. It was fun!
On the following days of that first week, I kept up with the “yes” attitude to meals (leftover dinner for breakfast? yes! veggie dogs for the 5th time this week? yes!), activities (play floor is lava with me again? yes!), and personal preferences (I don’t want to go outside. Fine! Can I shower tomorrow instead of tonight? Yes!). It was easy to see that so many of my regular “rules” and constraints were truly unnecessary, and only served to try (and fail) to give me a sense of control. Having a Yes attitude also made it easier for me to identify what was truly important to me. Everyone was happier, and the kids were actually more cooperative when needed. But mostly, I didn’t ask them for as much as I usually do. I got a glimpse of what some people’s family lives must be like - happy and relaxed, instead of tense, angry and resentful.
Writing my own story
One of the things that came up for me around that was the role I had assigned myself in response to their dad. I was believing I “had to” be the one enforcing healthy eating, outdoor time, exercise, screen-free time, etc, because he wasn’t. Noticing that allowed me to conclude that there is no such constraint. I am not required to fill in his blanks.
In every phase of living we do not have to conform to the way our life has been written for us. - Deborah Levy
I feel like I rewrote my story over those 2 weeks. Perhaps that is why I look back on them fondly. I made decisions freely, without attachment to a way things “should” be, or how others might expect me to be. Most of the time, I am the one imposing those limitations on myself, even if I put on a mask with someone else’s face on it while I do it.
I will say more about that next week, when I write about chatting with my inner critics. In the meantime, I would love to hear about what ultimately unnecessary, self-imposed rules you’ve broken lately.
https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/sante/671856/luc-boileau-fait-une-mise-a-jour-sur-la-covid-19-au-quebec
https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees/age-sexe/evolution-hospitalisations#menu-sections
I don’t mean to minimize the severity of COVID. I mean COVID in my home, not in general.