The Strange New World In Which I Find Myself

Today, April 7th, 2020, I made a decision which is to write about the impact Covid-19 is having on my personal life, my writing life, my working life, my relationship with family and with friends.

Where to begin?  My dear mother would remind me that it is always wise to start at the beginning.   In the beginning, for me, I thought there was a lot of fuss being made about something quite minor.  To borrow from Shakespeare, I believed there was "much ado about nothing".   

At the time I was planning a family dinner here at home; anticipating the arrival of my sister and my niece to come to Elliot Lake for a weekend visit.   To celebrate the occasion I invited my grandsons, my daughter, and some friends to join in the festivities.

The day of our dinner, CBC told me that there were 200 cases of Covid-19 across the entire large area of my beautiful Canada.    Uninformed and basically ignorant of the reality we would all soon be facing, I enjoyed our family dinner, the hugs, the love, the food, and the companionship.  It was a good day.

Today it is a wonderful memory.  I now think about my life as how I lived it before the family dinner on March 14th, and how I live it after the family dinner.  In this way I've made the family gathering a milestone, if you will, 

Because today, across my beautiful Canada, there are now 17,049 confirmed cases of Covid 19 with 349 deaths.  In my beloved province of Ontario today there are 4,726 confirmed cases of Covid 19 with 345 deaths.  Globally, there are now 1,381,014 confirmed cases of Covid 19 and I understand there have been 78,269 deaths.  My heart breaks for the families directly impacted by these statistics.    

I'm very grateful I had my family dinner when I did because now I live in self-isolation and have been doing so for three weeks.  Thank God, I am in good health and, thankfully, at this time of writing, my family and friends are all well.

Unfortunately, there are now three cases of this virus in my small home town.

It has taken me some time to get used to living in self-isolation.  I'm very grateful for the companionship of  Sam and Lila, my two ten-year-old chihuahua handfuls.

Just as mental health experts suggest, I have taken the steps to ensure that my days are structured.  I've even gone so far as to tape a schedule onto my fridge door and I'm doing my best to stick to the schedule.

I am allowing my evenings to remain schedule-free.  This may or may not change in the future.

One of the many things on my schedule is the time to take online courses.   I know how important it is, in my senior years, to keep my mind active.

The course I am currently taking is facilitated by Zayra Mo, a lovely, bright, and intelligent young  woman who is sharing her knowledge, her wisdom, and her singing glass bowls with her students.   

Today was my day three of the course.  The focus was on intention and goal setting and the difference between these two thoughts.   

In discussing these topics, attention was placed upon soul values, defining life purpose, being the best one can be. 

Now that I am in self-isolation, I no longer have personal contact with my counseling clients.  In fact, I have personal contact with no one.  I am totally dependent upon social media, email, or the phone in order to stay in touch with family and friends.   

Had I been able to see into the future I would have purchased a better phone long before the arrival of Covid 19.   I never needed to make a lot of use of a phone, and for this reason I satisfied my needs with an old flip phone. Today this old phone is good for short conversations but only if one can put up with the lack of sound clarity.  A five minute conversation means that my phone needs to find its way back onto its charging stand.

Understandably, I hope, I do not encourage phone calls unless they have the nature of an emergency.   I do rely on my phone to place my order for groceries through the wonderful Age Friendly Shopping/delivery service offered by our amazing City of Elliot Lake.  

For this reason, without a reliable phone, I am basically dependent upon social media and email to stay in touch with others.

So today I decided to start keeping a blog about my journey through the Covid 19 self-isolation experience and I am happy to share, with anyone who might be interested, the seven sentences used in the online course titled "Women's Holistic Challenge To Reboot Their Life" that describe a confident, empowered woman.

In this course the following seven sentences were used to describe the qualities found in a confident woman; a women who is empowered.
1. They own their flaws and strengths. 
2. They keep clear priorities.
3. They speak up. 
4. They pair action with knowledge. 
5. They accept the value of failure. 
6. They make the most of small wins. 
7. They build momentum

Do any or all of these points describe you?

If not, perhaps some journaling or some meditative self-examination will be something you would like to add to your schedule of daily activities during your own self-isolation.  I know these are things that are part of my daily life activities.

I think of a good friend who said not too long ago in one of his videos, "It's important to practice, practice, practice."  Now we've all heard those words before.  But what he said that truly left an impression on me was not 'practice makes perfect' but instead, 'practice makes better'.   

We can all practice ways and means to continue personal growth activities on our journey toward being our best selves.    

I try to make the point in several of my own Facebook posts that being expert at any given activity is not a requirement in order to be your best self.  What is needed is a willingness to try and the knowledge that we are willing to practice in order to become better; to be our own best friend; to be able to look into a mirror and smile knowing we will not let ourselves down.

If you are also living these very strange days in self-isolation, I hope that something I've said in this post will be of some help to you.   We are all in this together.  Be good to yourself.   Being good to yourself is not a selfish act.   Just ask yourself, how can I be strong for others if I am not strong and being good to myself?

By the way, I hope reading is part of your daily life activities.  Please don't forget I have many books available for your reading enjoyment on Amazon.ca    And my author's page is found at 
https://amazon.com/author/audreyaustin

Thanks for listening.   I love you all.  

Audrey.  :-)

Our Getting High On Life Workshop

focusing on

Emotional Healing and Being Authentic

that was scheduled for May 11th

has been postponed

to

Monday, September 21st, 2020.

I hope to see you there.