Mindfulness During the Pandemic
Written by Kathleen Cogan, M.A.
I suggest journaling to many of my clients as a tool for self-reflection, self-understanding and discovery and most importantly, as a mindful tool. Dan Seigel has researched and written so many wonderful books on how important mindfulness is for growth and healing (at the end of the article I’ve included more about Seigel’s work).
Overall, mindfulness, sometimes called meditation, refers to slowing down and bringing yourself to the present moment. Journaling can be a mindful pursuit if you think of it as a process, rather than writing for an outcome. Mindful journal requires asking yourself questions that require you to self-reflect on your thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. (Emotions are felt in the body, no?). This is what makes it mindful: the slowing down and observing your current thoughts, feelings and emotions. What better time to do this kind of work than during our very own global pandemic? Or as others have written: The Great Pause.
Even if you feel like it’s safe to interact with your friends and folks outside of your household, these moments must feel restrained. Or you might feel judged by others so you have taken to not telling folks where you are going for the weekend or who you will be with. These journal prompts are for you too. In fact, I’m thinking of everyone.
However, I want to acknowledge (some) my privilege here and ability to work from home. I moved to seeing my clients via telehealth two months ago and for the foreseeable future plan on continuing. I’ve heard many folks say things like, everyone is working from home. Everyone is not, or was not, working from home. From healthcare workers, city sanitation, groceries workers and the many men and women that work in refineries, chemical plants and essential manufacturing jobs and construction, there are millions of folks for whom working became more unsafe. (Our world view gets very small when we only have colleagues, family and friends from a particular social and economic class.)
Regardless of someone’s experience, there is always much to reflect on. I took this into consideration when creating these questions.
Do you feel safe?
Without a cure or vaccine we are all going to have to learn to live with COVID-19 and be the stewards of our own health and safety. Doing this starts with examining how safe you feel. What does safety look and feel like for you now? How could your world be safer? Or what do you need to feel safe or continue feeling safe?
What do you miss the most?
There are so many articles and blogs telling readers what the writer is missing and their assumptions on what others are missing, so try to be honest with yourself. What’s really coming up? What do you not miss? What do you miss and wish you could have done more of before the pandemic altered your life? Is there something you now wished you had been more grateful for?
Who do you miss? And who do you feel connected to?
Is there a friend or family member you are feeling particularly connected with? Someone you are desiring to be closer to? (This could be physically or through other forms of communications.) Are there folks you wish you had said yes to, or even harder for some, folks you wished you had said no, to, pre-pandemic?
What are your priorities?
Have they changed? Or maybe they have revealed themselves to you more clearly. Or maybe they haven’t changed at all. Regardless, this time of slowing down or at the very least having to change the way in which you go about your day to day activities, could serve to highlight how you were or were not investing your time and energy in the people, things or experience you believe to be your priorities. How you choose to spend your time, and most importantly, how you are feeling, can serve as a guide. What you miss and what you don’t miss can also serve as a way for you to examine what you thought your priorities were pre-pandemic, and then what you would like them to be going forward.
As you begin to write, you might find one question leads you to ask others. Let this happen. If you feel you are writing “off topic” continue. This is what is meant by process, and the process of reflection can take you to surprising places.
Resources by Dan Siegel
Parenting From the Inside Out (2004) co-written with Mary Hartzell, is full of exercises and journal prompts for reflecting on one’s childhood and how the past comes to the present (in both helpful and unhelpful ways) in parenting. I sometimes recommend it to non-parents because of how well Seigal and Hartzell synthese complex ideas about attachment therapy and neuroscience, and then put it into practical application.
The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well- Being (2007) continues to help readers to interage neuroscience and mindfulness.
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