A shitty week with a bright rainbow at the end.

After a rollercoaster of a week, I am going to put it out there and show my vulnerability (as I do because the perfect bright and breezy posts cannot be real all the time – surely?!)

I’m not simply a coach, I’m also my own human being!

One of my biggest issues is that as a coach, I feel the pressure to emulate perfection, well, the reality is that as a trait of being human that is not possible. I worry about my credibility as a coach and showing this level of vulnerability, but like many of the leaders I coach, that’s where we need to be, safe to express that we are not always okay and that’s okay. The key part is recognising it and dealing with it.

The joy of journaling.

I started this week with a video I’d recorded last week of me and my journaling – which I honestly feel is a life-saver at times. The diary has taken a battering this week and as I filled yet another, I ordered my next one which was a gift of self-love that made me smile – little things please little minds.

A storm on its way.

I realised at the start of the week that almost all of my work was being canceled until the end of April and my newly launched business - The Leadership Coaches - was not going to progress at the speed I imagined. Oh fuck!

The dark cloud.

As if the business news wasn’t bad enough, I also had some personal shit to deal with and then my daughter developed a ‘persistent cough’ and so at 7pm on Tuesday evening we went into self-isolation. Now, I’m sure it’s a psychological thing that I instantly started to feel confined and experienced cabin fever – the thought of 14 days at home with my kids…love ‘em as I do…I started to predict how many things could go wrong!

Torrential rain.

Wednesday was a tough day – my lowest - I craved all the things I couldn’t do, like go the gym, Zumba, roller disco or my newly started yoga class, I couldn’t mix with people – natter to the check-out operator, pop into the café for a cuppa and a cake…and boy was I missing my interactions I get through my work.

My commute is often into London, where I chat to people on the train, at the tube and in the offices/venues I work in…now…what? I put a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday but felt it was too vulnerable and so deleted it…why? Who knows but I did.

A ray of light.

I popped on to Twitter and empathised with someone else in a tough position and I felt connected, I felt it was okay not to be okay. I stayed for a while and enjoyed the warmth.

Yesterday I received a DM from a lovely lady on Twitter and today I received a kind ‘Y’alright?” off a lovely guy on LinkedIn. I feel the warmth. An awesome lady on Twitter is trying to organise a pub quiz for us tomorrow night – we are excited for that! The sense of community is there…throughout all of this, it’s the connection that I feel is very important.

Daily, my Whatsapp groups and peers are awesome, posting pictures, humorous memes and generally buoying one another along…many of us have lost work in one way or another, a couple of people I know are likely to lose their businesses altogether and it has an impact in different ways for each of us.

A guiding star.

I also had a wonderful session with my counsellor, to whom you may have seen me post kudos earlier today, he’s awesome, my head clears when I speak with him and I gain that perspective, that I know I need but I find it hard to get to when I’m in a rough place.

A fresh start.

So today, I got my ass out of bed before 7am, had a nice cuppa and read my new book, waved through the window at my Milk and More delivery chap and grabbed my little bundle of supplies from the safe spot he’d dropped them. I did my half hour of very novice ‘downward-dogging’ yoga, followed by 10 mins of my Calm app practising mindfulness…my son walked in on me in the corpse position and nearly had a heart attack thinking his mum was brown bread! We laughed!

We are going to walk a friend’s dog’s later (yes, obeying the isolation rules and being remote!)

I’m thinking of plans to keep us focussed, busy and enjoying the simple pleasures of life…easier said than done, as we are quite a routine based ‘out of the house’ family…but we are lucky and I am reminding myself of this perspective regularly today.

A good guy I know, sent me a lovely link to a song that sums up how we need to approach this “One Day at a Time”.

Rays of sunshine.

In this post, I would like to acknowledge and thank these people, who for a variety of reasons have had a positive impact on me this week…

@Toby Messer @Sarah Parrott @Colin Litherland @Matt Provost @Rebekah Litherland @Kornelia Bilekova @Andy Kaye @Terry Neild @Marie Donn @Heather Rayfield @Jayne Harrison @Annette Hill @Selena Govier

A brighter future.

With my new-found perspective, I can also look once again outside of myself and my world and be very grateful for many of the low-paid and highly valued workers (loo roll stockists, doctors, nurses, delivery drivers, etc.) who are continuing to do a fab job in these challenging times.

In summary, thanks to all of you who have been kind, compassionate and human and allowed me to be who I am through a very difficult week.

#wellbeing #mentalhealth #selfisolation #coronavirus #challengingtimes #perspective #covid19 #counselling #wellbeingatwork