Maintaining Wholeness through Corona

A few weeks ago, I found myself getting to the end of the day and.. how do I describe this... 

just petering out.

Like I was a car that had just completed a 8-hour road trip and barely had enough gas left in the tank to get off the exit ramp.

I didn’t even have enough energy left to figure out what it was that I wanted to do with my “free time”, which led me to default to turning on Netflix and tuning into whatever show I had been binge watching recently

While sometimes that’s exactly what I needed, there were other nights that that “free time” didn’t leave me feeling more relaxed, or like I had taken a break from work at all.

It felt extra ironic that I wasn’t relaxing well given I completely control my schedule and, since I’m still in quarantine, have a fair amount more time on my hands without a daily commute, networking events or in-person socializing.

Can you relate to this feeling?! 

It brought me back to a model of wellness that has stuck with me from the Stanford Life Design Lab, which outlines the four primary categories of an individual’s life.

These four categories are: Love, Play, Work and Health.

Love encompasses anyone who sees you as important, and who you see as important. Play includes activities that you do solely for fun and enjoyment. Work is the way in which we create impact in the world and support ourselves financially. And Health encompasses mental, emotional and physical health.

My one sticking point with this model is that health, to me, is actually an overarching umbrella that encompasses all of these items, but for the sake of this exercise I understand why it is segmented in the way it is. 

So when I took a step back to try to understand why I wasn’t ending up feeling rejuvenated after I spent time “relaxing” (watching Netflix), I realized that I had two main components missing from my life: 

Love and Play.

It’s not easy to admit, given I work as a life coach, that my life could get so out of balance, literally leaving out 50% of what typically keeps me sane and thriving. However, we ALL are navigating through uncharted waters, and I can understand how I could have reconstructed my new “normal” in a Frankenstein, haphazard manner.

Once I realized what I had done, I had the chance to revisit my days and seek out creative solutions to integrate Play and Love.

For me, I found ways to Play by setting aside time to cook and go completely offline. No screens, whether for work, Netflix or scrolling. And for Love, I took it upon myself to start actively reaching out to my friends again: coordinating socially distanced picnics and reinvesting in some of the virtual hangouts that I had started off COVID so strong with.

They are small things, yes, but ultimately add up to a much more integrated and balanced Whole. While, during the age of Corona, it may be impossible to fill all of our buckets to their very top, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth seeking out the best ways we can stay in touch with ourselves and our needs! 

I want to challenge you today to take a couple minutes and evaluate how YOU are doing in these four categories: Work, Love, Play and Health. Is there one that could use some extra attention? What are creative ways you can meet your needs now, even as our daily habits are shifted from their norm?

And if Work is one of the areas you are seeing an imbalance, I invite you to download my 5 Questions to Shatter Your False Career Beliefs Workbook! It’s a great place to start when trying to get creative in ways we can reinvent our work lives for more fulfillment and meaning.