Don’t let go now!

For 107 days, we held on to our resilience, sanity and hope. We tried every trick in the book to keep the children happy and occupied while we juggled work, home schooling and everything else that life in lockdown threw at us.

Day X was a moving target that didn’t allow for much planning and so you strung yourself along as best as you could. I did too. We all did.

October 11 came as a relief but those days left us fatigued, tired and exhausted. And now, all we want to do is get back into some sort of a routine, a rhythm, a new normal.

My many long-distance hikes have taught me a few key lessons for this last bit and the bit after.

It is not uncommon that for us get hurt on the home stretch, sometimes with the camp within view. In fact, many of us do. Why? Because we are so tired that we don’t or can’t focus anymore. But it is when we are that exhausted that we need to focus most. Except it’s so incredibly difficult. Or we believe we don’t have to anymore either, because the hardest part is over. That is when we trip and fall.

When we get to camp, we tend to want to stuff ourselves. Only to be sick because our bodies can’t handle this change from exertion and exhaustion. Yep, been there, done that. Or we are so tired, we don’t want to eat at all. Equally bad.

Then there is the coming back to normal life. Except, it isn’t normal anymore – for us. The experience of the hike, isolation and exhaustion has changed us – often profoundly. It takes time to re-adjust, to learn to relate again - to build a new normal that incorporates those experiences.

We have reached a milestone now, and who knows what the next months and years will bring? Covid and the lockdowns have impacted us in many ways and we need to adopt a mindset that will allow us to adapt to those ongoing changes and challenges.

We need to continue to reach out to our families, friends and teams. Show them that we care and that we support them in this transition as much as we did during lockdown. I would absolutely love to work with you on this, but this is not about me. It is about you, what you need and what those around you need now - share the good stories, the wins and time together.

And if you want to work together - sonja@adventureyourself.com.au

#mindfulness #together #care #mindset