Quarantine Envy

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By: Lisa M. Hayes – Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.

There is a thing right now I might refer to as quarantine envy. I hear it from a lot of my clients and frankly have felt it at times myself. The thoughts:
Other people are doing / experiencing quarantine better than I am.
or
I should be doing more with my time and accomplishing something.

I know you know this but…
Quarantines are not designed for Pinterest for Insta.
These various states of lockdown, reopening, voluntary isolation, and mandated closures are designed to survive a pandemic.

Sure, some people are really enjoying their time some of the time. Some people are baking bread and taking nature walks and knitting sweaters for their kids. Some of that looks really good on social media.

However, I can assure you almost no one is having ONLY Pinterest worthy moments all of the time. Almost no one is living their best life during a global crisis every day.

Everyone is having some rocky scary moments or days and for many people there are more of those rocky scary moments than anything that feels like a #humblebrag.

Survival comes in lots of forms. It’s not all about NOT getting sick. Some of it is about surviving emotionally and managing the stress of hyper-vigilance without feeling homicidal towards your loved ones.

There is no “right” way to experience what we’re doing right now.

My only advice is lower your expectations in every way you possibly can.

And, if you’ve got an Pinterest-worthy loaf of home baked bread or an Insta-worthy nature walk with happy kids, please do share BUT please do not entertain any quarantine compare and despair.

The goal here is settle into all the moments with the least amount of resistance possible AND cry or scream if you need to. That might be the shortest path to feeling better.

 

More by Lisa: 

5 Habits of Self-sabotage to Stop Now