When 2020 started, I was full of hope, probably like many people. 2018 had been a very hard year with my son being born so early and 2019 had been hard in the beginning due to many ongoing medical issues between my two children. Towards the end of 2019, things were looking up. Naturally, when 2020 started, I felt like this was going to be the year when “things got back to normal.”
Boy, was I wrong. I don’t feel too bad about this part given how wrong we all were about so many things. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this year during the holiday season, so I wanted to share some things that were helpful for me, in case it can help anyone else.
When the pandemic started, I felt anxious, scared, and depressed. I wasn’t sleeping, I was eating and drinking all the wrong things, and felt trapped. I felt like I had no control over my life and watched horrified as many people chose to ignore our government’s recommendations or worse, watched our federal and many local governments themselves ignore medical advice.
After a month or so, I realized the way I was living was not sustainable. Once it became clear the pandemic was going to last for way more than a month or two, I realized that in order to survive it (ironically not from the actual infection itself), I had to make some big changes within myself.
The first change I made was to take ownership of my feelings. My job was not making me feel powerless. The virus was not making me scared. The news were not making me anxious. I was giving myself all those feelings by the thoughts I was having about what I was seeing and experiencing. I was in full victim mentality and it was not serving me. I started to focus on the things I could control and change and ignoring those I could not.
This change in my mindset didn’t mean I suddenly did not care about the virus or recommendations or anything else. I approached each situation with the mindset of how can I navigate this in a way that serves me and does not destroy me?
This pandemic taught all of us that we can’t control each other no matter how much we want to. I suffered so much in the beginning thinking how could so many people in this world care so little about others. Similar thoughts came to me during election night and the following days. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by people of different background, races, religions, and political thoughts. This last one is very important. I spent most of my life being surrounded by like-minded individuals and thinking the other side was the devil.
As I got to know people with different political views, I realized most of them (not all of course) did not hate everyone and wished for all of us to die. In fact, they had very reasonable explanations for why they chose to do things the way they did. I almost always disagree by the way, but when I used to yell and insult them (mostly my husband), I never got anywhere. I see so much of this going on in social media.
This brings me to the second thing I did, which was to stop assuming that I understood why everyone else was doing the things they were doing. I started to keep an open mind and engage the other side. I see so many posts on social media insulting and threatening people for various reasons because they are doing things we disagree with, including those that we think could kill us or hurt us and our families. But the truth is that nobody has ever changed someone’s mind by doing that. The only chance you have to make real change is to engage, understand where the other person is coming from, and have a conversation. Maybe you change their mind and maybe you don’t. When needed boundaries should be set. We all have our non-negotiables and those should never be compromised.
As I started to transition to this train of thought and attitude, it was like a huge weight was lifted of my shoulders. I no longer felt like humanity was the worst and that half the country I live in is terrible. I started to see that most of us make decision on what is best for our families and ourselves and not because they hate x, y, or z. It still doesn’t make the problems we have go away and I continue to do as much as I can to fight for a country where we all have equal rights and education, science, and love for all can prevail. But my heart and mind are focused because now I can sleep at night and I can be a more effective person in achieving all my goals.
None of these changes were easy. I started therapy. I started working out and/or doing daily meditations and yoga. I made a point to connect with friends and family. If 2020 showed me anything, it was who and what was important in my life and who and what were not. Self-care became indispensable and I hope as time goes on, it will become the norm and not a separate thing we have to do to stay sane.
The first week of 2021 was tumultuous to say the least. But it is also a week full hope with a new president coming soon and the first woman vice-president of mixed race being part of the team as well as Georgia turning blue with a Black and Jewish senator. The vaccine for COVID-19 is being administered. We have a long way to go to get back to normal. A new normal. The old normal may not have been as good as we all thought it was. As we all struggle in different ways, I want to encourage people to remember that. Everyone is struggling in their own way. Some more than others. We need to be kind to each other and continue to do the work to make the world a better place.
Happy 2021! Please comment or send me a message on Instagram (public or private DM) @smartmamamd if you are someone who needs help finding resources.