Some suggestions for coping during this extraordinarily challenging time.

Welcome back to my blog.

I thought it was time I shared some thoughts on what we can all try to do in the face of the global pandemic, with the hope that they will be of some help to at least one person. As I posted earlier this week on my instagram page (@brianbeechphd), in the face of the worry, fear, hardship and loss that this epidemic has brought upon us, I believe there meaningful things we can all do to cope, despite the restrictions most of us face in our communities.

As I have discussed with many people lately, it affords us opportunities that we may have been too busy, or too distracted previously to notice or enjoy. We all have more time at home, except for those working in essential services, to whom we all owe immense gratitude. At home, we can attend to the people and activities that we have neglected or given insufficient attention. One person remarked to me recently that her home as never been so clean! Our children (of all ages) and our pets are loving our time and attention. We can slow down, enjoy home-cooked meals, spend less time and money commuting, and more time with our families.

Of all the various things we can do, however, being present is likely the most useful and meaningful. We can use all of our senses to draw us into the present: our breath, our bodies, the five senses that connect us to the physical world. Whether we are inside or outside, being present to whatever is in our immediate surrounding pulls us - even if only for a moment - out of the past, out of the future, and into the present. In the present we can slow down, take care, notice what is around us, and hopefully appreciate what we sense. Even if worrisome thoughts rush into your awareness, they too will pass when we re-engage with the present.

In the present there is less fear, as we are less focused on the ‘what-if’s, and ‘if-only’s’ that attempt to steer our minds away from the sound of the birds outside, or the smell of coffee, or the laughter of your child, or the sweeping of your floor, or making supper for yourself or your family.

In the present, there is no past, no future. There is only now. And while our full appreciation of this fact is fleeting, it is there for all of us to ‘find’; all we have to do is pay attention.

As the late, great Ram Dass used to say, ‘be here now, and it will all happen’.

Take care.