Much-need perspective in Lockdown

Lauren Derrett - 14 Apr 20

It wasn’t that long ago when I’d be sat in a cafe with my girlfriends sharing and laughing about totally random, pointless stuff, or sat alone in my office with all my focus on work, in silence after happily having handed Ace (7) over to his teacher for the 7 following hours.

Those days feel like a lifetime away now

Oh how I long for those days now

We’re 4 weeks into corona lockdown and laughter, focus, and silence are all a thing of the past, (although ‘manic’ laughter still happens most days) I’ve been feeling all kinds of ‘woe is me’, and spending too much time focusing on what I’m missing out on (mainly eating out, I’m a terrible cook) and hugs from my friends

There had to be an intervention, fast, this way of being wasn’t serving me, only reaffirming that things are a bit shit!

Out of sheer desperation to drag myself out of this funk and seek some much-needed inspiration and perspective,  I decided to revisit a book I’d read pre-covidshitshow, and the perspective I was seeking came like a smack in my miserable face

The book is called ‘If I could tell you just one thing‘ by Richard Reed, and the heavy dose of perspective came from Terry Waite, the paragraph read…

‘He describes his 4 years of solitary confinement in a tiny, windowless cell, chained to a wall. He recounts the beatings, the mock executions he suffered. He explains how he had to put on a blindfold if a guard came into the cell, so he didn’t see a human face for four years, and how they refused him a pen, paper and books and any communication with the outside world, including his family. He reflects back on it all and says “yes, it was a bit isolating”

Terry goes on to say

“I learned in the cell. What you have to do is live for the day, you have to say, now is life, this very moment. It’s not tomorrow, it’s not yesterday, it’s now, so you have to live it as fully as you can. Invest in every day”

I think we can all learn from this, can’t we?

This is not our whole lives, this is a moment in history, if your kids on the iPad longer than you’d like then say to yourself ‘this is a moment in time, not his/her whole life we are safe’. If you’re in lockdown alone, be sure to connect with whoever you can, whenever you can and remind yourself ‘this is a moment in time, not my whole life, I am safe’.

If you’ve smashed The Tiger King on Netflix and the idea of feeding your other half to a tiger seems like an inviting option , I feel ya, babe, take the deepest of breaths and say ‘this is a moment in time, this is not our whole relationship, he/she is safe’

If you are on the frontline then I am sending you all the love and thanks, you are the ones keeping us all safe ❤️

We can totally do another few weeks, we’ll be back with our friends, our favourite restaurants our jobs before we know it, let’s just keep seeking the perspective in things and not feed anyone to tigers

What’s keeping you focused right now?

Lauren Derrett

I'm Lauren, Founder of Wear 'em Out, reusable period pads for the empowered eco-curious. Mother of 4, Step-Mother of 2, I've been parenting for 24 years so have seen and learned a lot of stuff

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