How to Stay Sane Together: When You Can’t Leave Home, Make Home A Place You Want to Be
When you see a spouse, friend, sibling, or child every day, how do you maintain and even deepen the relationship? When many of the usual distractions and schedule are interrupted and you are isolated together due to a crisis, how do you stay sane together? It is easy to think each day is the same or you feel cooped up ⎼ or all you think about is what you can’t do and not what you can.
In such a situation, it is even more important than usual to increase your moment by moment awareness and realize what you often miss out on, due to your schedule or way of thinking about the world. Do you usually rush through life, from one place to another? Do you often get lost in thoughts or worries? How regularly do you check in on your thoughts, feelings, level of focus or object of awareness? How do you feel right now?
Right now you can strengthen your ability to look more clearly and listen more deeply. Look around at the room you are in now. What is something right here that you don’t usually notice or didn’t notice until now? Look at the ceiling, bookshelves, feel the surface of the seat you are sitting on, your belly as you breathe in. Or go outside your house, look up and down the street. What is there that you never noticed before? Or imagine someone who never visited you before was walking towards you. What would she or he see, hear, smell?
Notice the quality of light outside. Is it dim or sharp? Is it different from yesterday? How? Or different now than a few minutes ago? How is the light different at 8:00 am versus 4:00 or 5 pm?
Look up at the sky. We usually look around us but not up. It is so vast up there, isn’t it? Are there clouds? How fast are they moving or are they so thick they don’t seem to move at all? Just take it in….
To read the whole post, go to the Good Men Project.
Debbie Morey
I always enjoy reading whatever you write Ira. These days especially I look forward to it.
Ira Rabois
Thank you, Debbie. I hope you stay healthy and find ways to make this difficult time as constructive as possible.
Bob Heavner
In these times, these words comfort and assist with inward and outward with depth. Even sheltering in place, there are so many technology distractions that help us but also keep us from practicing what your words outline
Ira Rabois
Thank you, Bob. I am glad the post brings comfort. I seem to want to write all the time, now, or at least once a day. And keeping aware of how I relate with my wife and my own feelings. Stay healthy.