Its been nearly 3 weeks since my last blog post, which is bad on me! But sometimes, you need to take time away to focus on whatever curveball life has thrown at you. Some of you may or may not know, that my partner has been severely ill with COVID-19 since the middle of March. I would love to be reporting that he is much better and in fact over it, however, sadly this is not the case.
I haven’t spoken much about it since my blog post on our experience, back in mid-April. In fact, you may indeed have thought, he was over the worst of it or back to health… Unfortunately, it is not the case, we are at the end of Week 16 and unfortunately, he has been pretty much sofa/bed-bound for the past 3 weeks experiencing extreme fatigue and a myriad of symptoms, with different combinations each day. Its been hard for Joe and mentally tough for us both, but we keep on pushing through and I will write a post – a kind of Part 2 to our Coronavirus experience – soon, to keep everyone up-to-date as well as to bring further awareness to what many people are still experiencing today from COVID – a topic which I think the media and government have been far too quiet on.
Nevertheless, I wanted to drop you a line, to let you know that I am doing okay, surviving and remaining positive. I have been focusing my time, in the last few weeks, working from home at my full-time job, being a carer for Joe, looking after myself and our Puppy, and spending the time needed to acknowledge (which is important) the sadness of our current situation and not hiding from the pain it is causing to both Joe and I, but also focussing on doing all the things that allow my mindset to be as strong as possible, in order to be the strongest person for Joe. I thought it might be helpful, to pass on the little tidbits, that I have been doing, should anyone else be feeling low, going through bad times or is just generally interested in the activities I have been doing in order to keep mentally and physically well…. So here’s a list below.
- Morning Phone detox – not looking at my phone on social media, emails, my To Do List etc. for the first hour of my day when I wake up – honestly, doing this changes, your whole morning approach and I can not recommend it enough!
- Mediation in the morning for 5-10 mins – at the start of the year, I religiously started meditating for 5 mins everyday, as I wanted to learn how to get a relaxed state of mind and a clear mindset for each day. I must say, I loved it and have consistently kept it up all year, up and till the last few weeks, where my consistency started to waiver… so as Joe started to become even more unwell 3 weeks ago, I consciously re-kickstarted this habit as I wanted to get back to my 4-5 times a week consistency and I must say it has been a godsend.
- Exercise – mixing up my exercise – due to Joe being so unwell, I have not wanted to run outside as much as I haven’t wanted to leave the house. So most of my exercising has been ‘Courtney Black’ app based – however, they are very full on and I miss the endorphins of sometimes just doing sets of weights or running amongst nature outside! So I have gone back to my ‘mix of exercises’ routine, where I run twice a week outside, complete 1-2 Courtney Black sessions, 1x weight session and 1 long walk per week. Variety is the spice of life! And for me from a exercise approach, it is the key to my consistency.
- Reading fictional books – with the recent political events, I have found myself reading more non-fiction books – so I am back to reading ‘fiction’ – in which case is, soppy love stories! As I find this relaxing and pleasurable – so I have been making sure my ’20 min coffee and reading morning time’ is for soppy love story books only 😉 rather than a heady political book.
- Podcasts – non-fiction – listening to thought provoking books 20 mins of my day, whilst I cook or complete tasks which are second nature to me. Listening to non-fiction books, allows me to learn from other peoples perspectives and to think wider than my own experiences. I honestly, that we as humans, need to consciously do activities like this as it allows us to continue to be emotionally intelligent and empathic individuals.
- Baking – yes, thats right, you can always tell when I’m either Happy or Sad! As I can’t stop baking in both of these moments – so yes, I have been baking profusely, as I love the actual act of making the cake more than eating the cake, as it takes me back to comforting and loving memories of baking with my mum (who passed 12 years ago). Most of all, I love seeing the smiles on Joe and my family’s face when they eat the cake. So yes, I have been OVER-BAKING and have been dropping cakes off to my family on their doorsteps, throughout the whole of lockdown.
Anyways, there is just a little bit from me. I hope you all are keeping well and enjoying the easing of lockdown. However, please keep safe, wear your masks and continue to keep up with the hyper-vigilant hand washing 😉
I look forward to writing again and posting to you all soon.
Lots of Love,
Natalé xxx
“The lessons we learn in sorrow and in difficulty are often the most important lessons we learn of all.”
– Natale Beckles