During hard lockdown a while back, my child woke me up in the middle of the night to say he couldn’t sleep because he felt scared about the virus and lockdown and what’s happening.
We lay together in bed and chatted quietly about all the changes.
Change is something we are often scared of because our brain doesn’t trust things it doesn’t recognise. But we can actually teach our brain to love and appreciate the unknown because while it is full of imagined dangers, it is also full of wonderful potentials.
And the one you keep your attention on, is the one you find yourself experiencing.
Whether or not it ever happens.
As Mark Twain famously said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
So that night, helping my child deal with the fears that were washing through him, I told him that we can choose to lean into the Loving Unknown with trust and curiosity.
We looked at the bright side, like what a great gift it is to be alive at this time because we are getting to witness the transition of earth and humanity to something that has the potential to be closer to what many of us have longed for. Harmony, peace, working together as the whole world has had to do in a new way.
We spoke about how the waters and air are clearer than before because there’s less traffic and more people are home more.
We remembered all the reports we’ve heard that there are more birds singing in cities again and animals returning to spaces they’d left.
We talked about how humans have been spending more time at home with their families, and that many are starting to remember how important relationships are…
After a while he said, ‘You’ve helped me find my sleep again’ and I left him peaceful.
Loving yourself is also how you speak to yourself when you’re scared and what you choose to focus on.
Of course the horrible, scary things are there, but so is the beauty and goodness.
How are you talking yourself through the scary moments?
If you loved yourself, what would you say to yourself now?
