Lessons from lockdown

I think we can all agree that over the past few weeks we have had more than enough time for a bit of reflection upon our lives. For a lot of us this will be the first (and potentially the last) time in our lives we have had this much time to ourselves, even for those of us who worked through – which is crazy to think!

I had a love/hate relationship with lock down life. I LOVED the time to spend with Beau, the time to slow down with no guilt of falling behind or feeling "lazy" and the simplicity of life grew on me. I, however missed my family, worried about my mum, missed my friends and missed getting all dolled up for a few drinks and a boogie with the gals (the best). I missed the simple pleasure of driving somewhere to do a nice, scenic walk, sitting at a cafe enjoying a nice, hot coffee, even just sitting around with friends doing not much. Although we are not quite out of the woods, it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel and there are some aspects of lockdown and new found habits I wish to carry into normal life.

There has been a quote circulating which reads,

"In the rush to get back to normal life, consider which parts of normal life are worth rushing back to"

I love this quote and I have pondered it so much over the last few weeks. It resonates with me a lot as I try and make some shifts to include lessons from lockdown whilst on the way back to normal life.

1. Busy isn’t so great

In this day and age we absolutely glorify being busy. In the beginning of lockdown a few people had shared a quote which basically implied that if you’re not being productive during lockdown your not ‘too busy’ your just not committed – or something along those lines! This 1000% rubs me up the wrong way. These days we wear busy like it’s a badge of honor and If your not deemed ‘busy’ your deemed ‘lazy’ or not ‘determined’ as the quote suggests. We need to realize living life at 100mph isn’t sustainable and taking time to just slow down is necessary not slothful. Taking the time during lockdown to go inwards, ditch the guilt of not getting shit done and just enjoy going slow and even at times doing nothing and spending time within my bubble was uncomfortable at first but by the end of lockdown I swore I was going to do it more often. I promised myself to stop writing never-ending to-do lists to complete on my days off, stop booking myself back to back to back and allow some space and some time for.. Nothing.

2. Simplicity is bliss

My days off during lockdown consisted of coffee in bed with Beau – which was honestly my highlight. A walk with Leo, a good podcast. Home workouts, a bit of reading, cleaning the house and sorting those things I never had time to do. We made floating shelves out of an old cabinet that was due for the dump, we made Leo a bed and spent the day painting it and writing his name. We taught Leo new tricks, watched Netflix, Beau hit golfballs into a jar… It was simple. But it was GOOD. I was honestly shocked at how content I was with this new found simple life. Less new clothes, no spending money on anything superficial, or that I really did not need and I didn’t miss it… At all. And I saved a bunch of money. It goes to show you really don’t need those things to make you happy – I’m definitely not about to vouch to never spend a dime on an item of clothing or a bottle on bondi sands again, but I am saying that we really don’t need these things all the time to make us happy and we’ve really got all we need right here in our bubbles.

3. Our health is everything.

Although I have always valued good health and I always work to keep my body fit and healthy, it has never been more evident that without our health, we literally have nothing. From here on in I will continue to take care of my health and use what we have right in front of us to always support my body – good food and lots of veggies, love, rest, warmth. Staying healthy isn’t always antioxidant powders and tablets that claim to hold 100,000 veggies (big facepalm), its actually a lot more simple.

4. Local businesses need us

I, like I’m sure so many of you too, have gotten through life without putting tooooo much thought into our economy, and what it means to buy from your local shops and boutiques vs from huge online stores overseas. We all know someone with a side hustle or a whole hustle for that matter who rely on local foot traffic and local customers to keep afloat – they need our support more than ever both now and into the future. When this covid drama blows over I hope to remember the huge impact we can have on the economy of NZ by supporting our local businesses, before I turn to overseas shopping.

I am so happy to say that it seems we can see the light at the end of this horrible covid tunnel, which for so long we couldn’t see the way out of at all. Im looking forward to really seeing what life will be like after we’ve all had this time to reflect, I really hope we see some positive changes!

I also hope you are keeping well, safe and warm and I hope the same for your families!

Vaida x