Page 90 - FDCC Pandemic Book

Living in a Pandemic: A Collection of Stories on Coping, Resilience & Hope
T hough the last year has certainly had its challenges, social distancing didn’t keep me from having a pretty good year in 2020. I learned to serve my clients, several of whom were new to me, almost entirely from home. Though bored and frustrated at times, my daughters continued to thrive and learn. I even managed a few extras, like building my network on LinkedIn, publishing a book, earning a meditation teacher certificate, and launching a blog. How was this possible in such a mess of a year? It was possible because I prioritized my own happiness and mental
health.
This is not something that comes to me naturally. I am not one of those people who is genetically predisposed to either happiness or calm. Instead, my serenity over the last year is the product of what meditation teacher and self-compassion expert, Christopher Germer, calls “the gift of desperation.” I now know the importance of prioritizing my own needs—even in the midst of constantly competing demands— because years prior I had suffered through the consequences of not doing so. In the early years of my law practice (and indeed for most of my life before that) I was saddled with over thinking, anxiety, and depression. It came to a climax during a difficult first pregnancy and led ultimately to post-partum depression. My daughter and I fortunately survived that scary time and thrived after because I took it as the wakeup call that it was. In other words, I had fallen apart completely at an important point in my life, learned to put myself back together, and that process taught me a lot about what I needed to live a better, happier life.
As a result of this, when the emergency declarations came in March and everything started to shut down, I did not panic. No panic was necessary because I already knew what I had to do. I knew that it was imperative that I continue the disciplines I had already adopted to keep myself, my family, my clients, and my community steady, hopeful, and happy.
First, I knew that it was essential that I manage my own stress, monitor my tendency to worry and overthink, and be wary against isolation. The most critical way that I had learned to do this was establishing a regular meditation practice. Meditation helps me see when I am thinking, what I am thinking about, and examine how useful the thoughts are. That practice helped me, and helps me still, to drop the useless “what if” thoughts and defend against mental assaults of self-criticism. My proficiency with these strategies was well-established in March 2020, so I knew as soon as the lock down instructions came that maintaining my practice was critical. Like everyone else, I was scared and worried what would happen to my family, my firm, and my country. Each day, though, my meditation practice helped me accept and care for this fear and refocus my attention on the issues and challenges before me instead of succumbing to the rumination that would only make life harder.
85