Keeping Your Mind Healthy Central Valley CA

May 13

Keeping your mind healthy has always been a priority for me, but it’s never been more important than it is right now. For many of us, we are approaching the two-month mark of our shelter-in-place orders due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. While there are signs of a plateau or even a reduction in cases in some parts of the country, I think we are also realizing that we are not just going to “get back to normal.”

I, myself, was used to having a quiet home office to work in once my husband went to work and my children went to school. Suddenly, like so many families, I was thrust into the role of teacher with no time to prepare. Since mid-March I have been juggling trying to continue to work from home, while helping my three kids with their distance learning. It’s challenging managing it all!

While we have found time to do some things we didn’t have time for before, like taking walks and baking, life is still busy, and hectic. But instead of running to meetings and kids’ activities, it’s all taking place at home. It can take a toll on one’s peace of mind.

As the weeks go by, I miss my friends. I miss going out to eat, I miss going to church, and I miss collaborating in person with so many brilliant women entrepreneurs that I know. And yes, like many, I’m still worried about the wrath of this contagious virus.

So how do we approach and alleviate the fear, anxiety and isolation that we are experiencing? There are a number of tools I use that are helpful to me. Whether it’s prayer, meditation, exercise, reading or consciously identifying gratitude, the benefits to my mind and spirit are enormous. I recognize that we are all different, and thus, coping mechanisms that work for one person, might not be the same ones that work for another. But I offer up some suggestions for you to try.

There are some wonderful opportunities to be found with just the click of a button.

1)Finding Joy – A blog/facebook group/instagram page full of encouragement

2)Beginning Again – A podcast from Leeana Tankersley

3) The Happy Hour with Jamie Ivey – An encouraging podcast for women

4) Daily Devotionals – Prayers, hymns, scripture and more on YouTube, from Zion United Reformed Church

5) Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – A book by Carol S. Dweck, Ph. D.

My Women Empowering Women group met via Zoom recently where this was a main topic of discussion.

Together we came up with a list of things we’ve been doing to help our mindset:

Exercise and eating healthy
Staci Danford: The Grateful Brain
Goop Podcast
Napoleon Hill quote "Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit."
Encourage others and it comes back full circle and encourages you.
Kathy's blog
Studio Joy has online classes and you can order products from their site.
Gardening helps the mind
Visit Garden Joy if you see the gate open and just take a walk around it. It's amazing the changes that have happened there and it's a great place to just go and enjoy visiting.