Learning to float with the river

Finding the positives in a heap of negatives can be very tricky indeed. However, when a situation is beyond our control and your choices are taken out of your hands and into another’s, you can either float upstream with the tide or try to swim against it. The chance of success with swimming against the tide is minimal. It’ll just leave you exhausted (and you probably won’t have gone anywhere)

When lockdown first happened, I was worried and stressed. Hello change! We don’t always meet change with open arms, do we? Particularly when the change is forced on us. I often get stressed for other people – trying to explain to my customers how we will make up missed sessions, letting down my students ready to take exams, explaining to my daughter that she cannot perform in her show – most of my stresses were focused on how this would affect other people in my life. I got a bit panicky at times; had a few chest pains. The ‘problem’ mountain seemed to grow bigger and bigger whilst my ‘solution’ footwear for climbing the mountain seemed to get flimsier. What I didn’t realise at first, was that the situation was out of my control. It’s taken me weeks to realise that by continuing to try and control this situation, for instance, think up a million ways to find new dates for work or worry about whether I will be furloughed or not from another job, I was wasting valuable and precious time. And I was completely missing the point.

I appreciate that CO-VID has had a disastrous impact on certain people around the world. For some, they have lost their lives and I am incredibly sad for those individuals and their families. I am fortunate that I do not know of anyone in my immediate sphere who has suffered from the virus or if they have, they’ve only had it mildly. The illness part of the virus has had no impact on me (so far anyway). Only the situation surrounding the virus has had an impact, namely, lockdown. Apart from connecting online with friends and family (and for me, almost totally avoiding the news), I am living in a bubble. My bubble consists of my husband, daughter, two cats, house and garden, and the short walks we take every day where occasionally we will chat to people from a distance. Living in a bubble can be dangerous. Sub-consciously there is a possibility that we start to narrow our thinking, stop a healthy channel of exploring our emotions and getting that caged feeling. There are concerns that mental health will be a larger issue to deal with after lockdown. I agree this is probably true. For me, these concerns are like the river. The river is constant just like these problems are constant – they will always exist – but right now, we could be present in our situations, embrace what we have right now, and we can float along the river. Or we can worry, stress about all the things yet to come, frantically swimming against the tide and wasting our precious energy. When we float with the tide, it might take you somewhere you never thought possible.

By learning to float with the river and stopping myself trying to climb the problem mountain, I am learning mindfulness. I am learning how to be present each day and appreciate what I have around me right now. It sounds cheesy, I get it, but I’ve listened to birdsong sat in the garden, I’ve walked in the garden without any agenda of doing, I’ve started eating fruit more slowly and appreciatively. By doing less for this unique time I have at home, in some ways, I am gaining more. New perspectives about myself, my family, the world around me. Happily, there are times when I am less non-judgemental of myself. Instead this peaceful time has allowed me to step back and become an observer of my thoughts and behaviours, rather than instantly trying to fix them or worry about them. I am teaching myself to see my thoughts like the river. I am sat on the riverbank observing my thoughts going along with the water. I don’t have a net, so I’m not going to fish the thoughts out and therefore fixate on them. I will just acknowledge them as they go past – whether they be good or bad thoughts – and ultimately the river will carry them along out of my mind until the river carries the next new thought. Hopefully that way I will enjoy the riverbank even more. Because I rarely get to sit on the riverbank………