What’s Working For Me Right Now - Part 1

As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, many of us have found our daily routines turned upside down. Rhythms and relationships are changing faster than many of us feel we can keep up. Institutions that we relied on are no longer available, or at least not in the same way. We are all adjusting to this new normal.

My family’s experience of all this has been a somewhat uncommon one. My partner has been working from home for almost 25 years. I’ve been working from home in various jobs for about 16. Almost 8 years ago we began alternatively educating our four children. So our family was already accustomed to being home, together, a lot. We, too, are missing classes, meetings, and time with friends and extended family right now, but our days in the house have not been stressful or filled with conflict.  

I remember when they were though. I remember the days of staring at my husband, my favorite person in the world, and thinking, “How are we ever going to manage spending this much time together!?” And I’m an extrovert! Similarly, as years went by and children were added to our ranks, there were angst-filled seasons of trying to meet everyone’s needs, mediate conflicts, and maintain some semblance of adult sanity. Transitions are often grating. We feel irritated and sensitive, raw. But those feelings can and do pass. So I hope by sharing with you some of what is not only working for us now, but has been working consistently for a long time, that you may find some easier ways to create a new rhythm in your house. That you will be able to adjust relatively quickly instead of stumbling in the dark for years like we did.

It requires a great deal of courage to acknowledge the realities of the grief we are facing. 

1. Do your own work: I don’t mean what is due to your employer or your share of household tasks.  I mean the difficult internal work of meeting yourself. We all have grief work to do.  We all had expectations and plans about how the next week, not to mention the next year, was going to go.  We are all facing different levels of financial, emotional, and physical strain. It requires a great deal of courage to acknowledge the realities of the grief we are facing.  With the future being unknown it can feel dangerous to venture into grief. Like it might never end. I promise it does. Grief is like waves. It ebbs and flows. Some days the currents are stronger than others.  But much like the actual ocean, turning our backs on grief is the quickest way to be overwhelmed by surprise. When we face our grief, allow tears to flow, allow anger and confusion to move through us - they all tend to in fact, flow through.  Like breathing in and breathing out. Doing your own work - naming what has been uniquely lost by you and how you feel about it - creates internal space into which you can begin to welcome those around you.
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2. ​Abandon authoritarianism: Increased time together, in shared space, can be an invitation to move away from seeing others as cogs in the machine of daily grind and move towards re-envisioning one another as whole people.  This is true of partners, children, housemates, neighbors, and co-workers. Many of us unintentionally relate to others from a place of scarcity. The fear that there is not enough time, not enough resources, not enough sleep, not enough love.  If we work from the assumption that it is impossible for all needs to be met then we must put a lot of mental and emotional energy into prioritizing needs, creating hierarchy. Especially for parents or other caregivers, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that either our needs and desires must be met first, or that we must fully sacrifice ourselves to meet the needs of those around us.  This is somewhat maintainable when our regular routine gives us breaks and space from the demands of others. However, it is never sustainable in the long run. Times like these offer us an invitation to build consensual households. Where everyone’s needs matter and everyone is given consideration. I am not suggesting abdication of parental authority, nor denying the power dynamics inherent in adult-child relationships.  However, if we can move from a posture of, “How do I get through this” to “How can we best make this enjoyable for everyone” then we are no longer competing. We are all giving a little and taking a little to create realistic balance. We all need play and rest, togetherness and privacy. By working together we can create space and gift each other with feeling seen and heard.
   
   
3. Embrace Intentionality: For most of us, some aspects of our lives have been carefully chosen and curated while other parts have just seemed to happen.  We often fall backwards into routines provided for us by work, school, or religious activities and then try to fit the rest of life in-between.  In many ways, the disruption of those institutional rhythms feels like chaos, but I would like to suggest a reframe. Perhaps some of the disorientation we are feeling is the return of agency.  We get to choose again. We get to choose much of what our work day will look like, how and what our children will learn, how our spiritual health will be maintained, which relationships will be poured into and which ones will survive some distance.  That’s a lot of decisions to make. But not all of those decisions have to be made today. And no decision needs to be final. We have an opportunity in these days to really examine what works well for our household, and customize to that. No one needs to do what the neighbors are doing.  It is okay to do what works for you and your house, today. I encourage you, as much as you can, to enjoy this freedom to choose. To control what we can. To discover that you are capable of much more than you thought possible, and to do it all on purpose.
   
   
4. Practice calm, direct, honest communication: This may seem so obvious that you are wondering why I didn’t list it first!  In my experience, leaning into this kind of conversation depends on openness to the first three points. I have found that putting in the effort to make “I” statements builds in an accountability that is otherwise easily lost.  It is faster to tell my partner or child, “You need to…” when I am feeling frightened or otherwise stressed in a situation. Starting with “I need … from you” requires me to do my own work, abandon authoritarianism, and embrace intentionality. It also helps me to hear the deeper need out loud. Sometimes my concern is genuine, “Please don’t run with knives in the house!” But sometimes when I rephrase into an “I” statement I realize it’s really only me that has a problem, “I like the doll’s hair long.” Whether that is asking someone to climb down from a dangerous place, or to give me five more minutes to finish an email, making it an “I” statement allows me to express and stand up for my needs and invite the other to care for me. As opposed to making a demand on the other (“You need to …”) which immediately puts us in an adversarial who-matters-more dilemma at best. At worst, it shames and isolates us from one another.
   
   
5. Get in touch with your higher power: Whether you believe in God, in Love, in Justice, or in Science, the Source of that belief resides deep within you and extends far beyond you. (Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski break this down wonderfully in their book Burnout, which is a great read for times like these!).  There is an abundance of calm. There is nourishing peace. There is community even when we feel distanced. The trick is to connect with it. Practice attending to the particular things that point you to universal truths. Take a moment to look at the clouds and wonder at the bigness of the sky.  Appreciate the blooms on trees, consider how slowly they grow and yet how strong they stand. Listen to the birds, ask what makes your heart sing. Enjoy art, be curious about the experiences of another. Smell your coffee, practice gratitude. Try something grounding and integrative like coloring, box breathing, meditation, journaling or yoga.  Moments of calm are available throughout the day.  Learning where that calm lives in you, and being able to access it during days when breaks are few can help you pace yourself.  Your higher power is both within you and outside you, and here for times just like these.

So I hope by sharing with you some of what is not only working for us now, but has been working consistently for a long time, that you may find some easier ways to create a new rhythm in your house. That you will be able to adjust relatively quickly instead of stumbling in the dark for years like we did.

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Erin Jantz received her Master’s Degree in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from the Institute for Spiritual Formation.  She also holds a B.A. in developmental psychology and has furthered her education with trainings in trauma care from Boston University and intensives with Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk. She has been practicing spiritual direction since 2012, helped to author ICTG's Spiritual Formation Resource Guide, and also teaches and speaks on a variety of spiritual formation topics.  Erin lives in Southern California with her husband and their four marvelous children.