I can relate because I’ve been using this coping strategy to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. I’m feeling nostalgic and long for how my life used to be: weekends spent with family, outings with friends, hugs from my grandkids, and feelings of personal safety and economic security. Like many people, I’m also affected by the global state of affairs. The news media bombards us every day with stories of political and social unrest, racial and religious tensions, natural disasters, and political divisiveness with people viciously attacking and bullying each other. These environmental factors, coupled with personal challenges have a negative impact on our well-being.

With so much negativity, I find myself searching for strategies to self-soothe. One strategy that works for me is retrieving memories of happy times filled with love, connection, and laughter by looking at photos of my family and friends. This activity makes my heart sing with joy. I notice that my Facebook community is doing the same as they post photos of past memorable events, usually with family and friends. It’s understandable that during high-stress situations, we seek peace and ways to comfort ourselves.

Learn more about Developing a Resilience Mindset

I gain strength and comfort from people I admire who have gone through traumatic events. Many found solace by developing a rich inner life filled with happy memories that sustained them and helped them to cope. What they have in common is they found ways to transcend their grueling experiences.

For example, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Dr. Victor Frankl, discusses conjuring up images of his wife during happy times and actually having conversations with her while marching to his work site as a slave laborer in the infamous Auschwitz death camp. He also rose above his suffering by visualizing himself giving a lecture in the future on the psychology of the concentration camp. In The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela, President Mandela reminisces about his son Makgatho’s happy childhood surrounded by love. These memories sustained and nourished them and provided respite from their suffering and daily drudgery of their lives.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing this pandemic to Dr. Viktor Frankl’s experiences in the Holocaust or to President Nelson Mandela’s incarceration at Robben Island Prison. However, I feel better knowing that if they found comfort in their abhorrent environments, then I can surely find it during this pandemic. They are my role models who teach me lessons that I can apply in my own times of crisis.

I started a project recently to retrieve joyful memories by looking through my twenty-one albums for photos that make me feel happy and alive. Yes, I still print out pictures and put them into albums. I found one of me standing in a field of sunflowers, another on a beach in Hawaii, several dancing, and many with my children and grandkids. I’ve framed and mounted these heartwarming photos on a wall where I can easily see them. When I look at them, it brings me to my happy place. And this makes me feel so good and boosts my morale when I need it.

Read more about The Healing Power of Gratitude

There are many strategies to help us self-soothe and lift our spirits. Here are suggestions to help you get started using a body, mind, and spirit approach to well-being.

• Start your day with a ritual practice to anchor and protect you against stress: listen to calming music and/or hum or sing to yourself; practice relaxation exercises such as deep breathing, yoga, tai chi; meditate; pray; read inspirational literature, etc.

• Practice the basics of well-being:
  • Move your body: e.g. exercising, dancing, playing a sport, bicycling, swimming, etc.
  • Do a relaxing activity: Use a diffuser with calming essential oils such as lavender, orange, ylang-ylang, or rose; spend time in nature; watch and listen to the fireplace channel on television, etc.
  • Eat healthy foods. Enjoy a comforting meal or food, perhaps from childhood.
  • Stay hydrated.
  • Get enough sleep.

• Give yourself positive pep talks. Tell yourself something like: “I’ve dealt with challenges before. I can do this,” “Past experience has shown me that this too will pass.”

• Get in touch with your feelings and find an emotional outlet. Share your thoughts and feelings with a family member, friend, or therapist, someone you trust and who has a calming effect on you. If you have no one to talk with, write in a journal.

• Connect to a higher meaning in life that provides an internal anchor: Deity, nature, the universe, community, etc.

• Connect with family members, friends, and colleagues who have a calming effect on you. Have lighthearted discussions. Use humor. Tell jokes. Sing songs. Stay away from or minimize contact with toxic people.

• Start a creative activity: dance; write a poem; color (there are adult coloring books); paint; listen to and make music; compile a photo album and/or scrapbook of memorable events, try a new recipe.

• Incorporate a positive word into your vocabulary, e.g. wonderful, delight, awesome.

• Create a living space that nourishes and replenishes you as you surround yourself with objects and mementos that have a calming effect. It can be as simple as a special chair you call your own.

• Participate in pleasurable activities that give joy and meaning to your life.  Ask yourself the questions: “What gives me pleasure?” “What makes me happy?”  Give yourself permission to be playful and silly.

• Incorporate joyful rituals into your everyday lifestyle: tell someone you love them; show yourself kindness by treating yourself to something special such as a lingering bath with candles and music; buy yourself flowers.

• As your day ends, focus on at least one positive experience that happened, e.g. someone smiled at you; the breeze on your face; the sun infusing your body with warm energy; a conversation that lifted your spirits.

• Think about or write down at least three things you are grateful for. Remember to appreciate your body. Consider keeping a gratitude journal. Practice gratitude for the blessings in your life.

These are some suggestions to get your mind thinking of self-soothing strategies. You probably have others. The key is to find ones that work for you and integrate them into your daily life.

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Psychologists define resilience  as “the process of adapting well in the face of significant sources of stress.” Resilience-based research tells us that how we deal with adversity is more important than the actual traumatic event. People generally adapt well to stressful events. Most of us are competent, adaptive, resourceful and resilient individuals who cope as best as we can with traumatic experiences such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We must not fall into a state of “learned helplessness” where we believe we have no control of changing or controlling our situation. Unfortunately, there are things we can’t change as we live with this uncertainty but there are many simple things we can do, actions we can take to show us we are in charge. I researched the evidence-based literature and found a list of protective factors that can mitigate the stress we are experiencing and make us more resilient. These include:

• Personality traits: have a positive outlook, problem-solve solutions, recognize your strengths, feel in control of the situation by taking action, no matter how small;
• Have a social support network. Turn to community resources;
• Get in touch with your feelings and find an emotional outlet;
• Find ways to reduce your stress and stay calm. Integrate ritual practices that serve as anchors, e.g. deep breathing/relaxation exercises;
• Be involved in life-affirming activities that give meaning and purpose;
• Be kind
• Have relationships with kind and caring people;
• Practice gratitude
• Have hope
• Face fear(s) with courage: feel the fear and do it anyway
• Grow positively from this experience

Read: The Healing Power of Gratitude

Tips for Fostering Our Resilience

So how do we foster resilience? Below are some tips I’ve learned from my work with Holocaust survivors over the past 30 years, the research literature and my personal life. Resilience involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that we can learn and develop.

Here are some strategies. Feel free to add your own to this list:

• Adapt to circumstances you can’t change, no matter how difficult. I learned this life lesson from my late mother, a Holocaust survivor. At age 15 she was interned in the Lodz Ghetto and then shipped to Auschwitz death camp. Her words inspire me whenever I am faced with a challenge. She made everyday choices to control her environment. One of them was choosing her attitude and taking action when responding to situations. She had a positive attitude and never dwelled on her suffering. She persevered and never gave up, not even when her entire family was deported to their deaths and she was left alone in the ghetto. She cried herself to sleep each night and in the morning put her energies into staying alive. And most importantly, she never lost hope that things would improve – that she would survive and rebuild her life.
• • Choose your attitude and choice of action when responding to situations. Although we have no control over the attitudes and behaviors of others, we can choose how we react in any given situation, even in the most horrendous circumstances, as noted by Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Dr. Victor Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning: “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except for one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” Many survivors say that it was “luck” that helped them to survive. However, I’ve observed that many people survived because of the everyday choices they made and the actions they took or chose not to take.

• Start your day with a ritual practice to anchor you and inoculate you against stress: listen to calming music with no emotional baggage, practice deep breathing/relaxation exercises, meditation, mindfulness, prayer, emotional freedom techniques (EFT), yoga, tai chi, etc.
• Empower yourself with information from legitimate news sources.
• Practice good hygiene to limit the spread of the virus.
• Practice self-care by eating a healthy diet, exercising, getting enough sleep, reading inspirational literature. Do something special for yourself every day. Avoid alcohol, drugs and other substances that deplete your immune system.
• Acknowledge your feelings and give yourself permission to feel them, e.g. fear, anxiety, sadness, worry, etc. Most of us are grieving our losses, e.g. death of family and/or friends, health, jobs, income, safety and security, our previous lives. Process your grief by talking about it or writing down the things you’ve lost and what’s different for you now. Allow yourself to be vulnerable and have patience for your process. Share your thoughts and feelings with a family member, friend, or therapist – someone you trust and who has a calming effect on you. If you have no one to talk to, write in a journal.
• Recognize your strengths and coping strategies. We all have them. Identify and list ways in which you’ve coped with adversity in the past. Be proud of your achievements and explore ways in which you can apply them in your current situation. See yourself through a resilience-lens and say: “I can handle this,” “I am coping with this situation to the best of my ability,” “I am courageous,” “I am strong,” “I am brave.” “I’ve got this.”

Read: Healthy Habits for Managing Stress and Anxiety

• Have a positive attitude. Visualize a positive outcome. Incorporate a positive word (e.g. wonderful, delight, awesome) into your everyday vocabulary. As your day ends, focus on at least one positive experience that happened.
• Stay connected with family and friends, by telephone, digitally or on social media. Have lighthearted discussions. Use humor. Tell jokes. Sing songs.
• Create a support network. We all cope better with life’s challenges when we are not alone to face them. Accept your vulnerability and ask for help if you need it. Turn to social service agencies.
• Live life grounded in the present moment. Give your attention to everything you do in the here and now, e.g. listening to a friend, walking, reading, eating. It sharpens our senses and gets us in touch with our thoughts and feelings. It also helps us problem-solve solutions to issues as they arise. Say the mantra, “It is what it is.”
• Take a walk in nature, if you’re not in isolation. It lowers heart rate and blood pressure, reduces stress hormones, boosts the immune system and improves feelings of wellbeing. If you can’t go outdoors, open the windows to air out your home. Breathe in the fresh air. On a sunny day, sit in front of a window and allow the sun to wash over your body.
• Look at the advantages of staying indoors. Ask yourself what you can do in isolation to make it easier. How can you use this time effectively? e.g. spend quality time with family members, organize cupboards and drawers, catch up on paperwork, take an online course, try a new recipe, etc.
• Find activities that give meaning and purpose to your life. Help others. Call a family member/friend to let them know you’re thinking about them and find out how they’re coping; post a resource you find helpful on social media, etc
• Set boundaries
  • Limit watching the news, e.g. check the news once a day and not before you go to sleep. It may keep you awake.
  • Limit contact with people who are spreading fear and misinformation.
• Remain hopeful that this too will pass; you’ll get through it. This will be over eventually.
• Look to the heroes who are helping us to stay safe. Redirect your attention to those who are helping us to stay safe. When we do, we feel a “moral elevation” that inspires us, fuels optimism and makes us want to do the same thing.
• Show gratitude to those who are doing their best to fight the outbreak. Tell them how much you appreciate what they’re doing to keep us safe.
• Focus on our common humanity and kindness. We are not in this alone. Many experts around the world are working hard to help us recover.
• At the end of the day, think about or write down at least three things you are grateful for. Remember to appreciate your body. Consider keeping a gratitude journal. Keep it simple. Begin your sentence with “I am grateful for.” Turn to this list when you’re feeling down. Develop a vocabulary of gratefulness because what you say influences how you think and what you do.
• Appreciate the simple pleasures in your life. Both my parents appreciated the simple pleasures in life such as family, friends, their health, and a refrigerator filled with food. They took nothing for granted.
• Find ways to self-soothe and lift your spirits, e.g. practice gratitude for the blessings in your life, read inspirational stories about ways in which people bring acts of kindness into their lives. It helps to counter the negativity that exists and injects us with hope that there’s still good in our world.
• Connect to a higher meaning in life which provides an internal anchor, e.g. deity, nature, the universe, community, etc.
• Develop an inner life that nourishes you during times of despair. Visualize yourself during happy times. Allow these memories and daydreams to sustain and nourish you.
• Grow positively from this experience. Look at the bigger picture, e.g. the earth is healing, there is less pollution around the globe; we are returning to a simpler way of life; we are finding creative ways to stay connected with each other.

Read this next: 7 Reasons You Shouldn't Fear the Flu; How to Prevent It Naturally

The post Developing a Resilience Mindset appeared first on NaturallySavvy.com.

When I’m feeling anxious and afraid, I gain strength and inspiration by thinking of the life lessons I learned from my late parents, Fela and Moishe Grachnik, Holocaust survivors from the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz. They endured starvation, hunger, disease, slave labour and the murder of their family members. And yet in spite of these horrendous experiences, they rebuilt their lives after the war, raised a family and contributed to their community.

Life Lessons

As I was growing up, my mother used to say, “In life we never know what lies ahead. What’s important is to adapt to circumstances you can’t change, no matter how difficult.” She made everyday choices to control her environment. One of them was choosing her attitude and taking action when responding to situations. She persevered and never gave up, not even when her entire family was deported to their deaths and she was left alone in the ghetto at the age of fifteen. She had a positive attitude and never dwelled on her suffering. And most importantly, she never lost hope that things would improve – that she would survive and rebuild her life. Both my parents appreciated the simple pleasures in life such as family, friends, their health, and a refrigerator filled with food. They took nothing for granted.

These life lessons serve me well as I face these challenging times. As I peruse the Internet, I find that people around the world are rising to the challenge.  They are finding creative ways to maintain their social connections and have fun without leaving their homes. There are free online movies, quarantine musical concerts by well-known artists, sing-alongs on balconies, free exercise classes, virtual museum visits, operas and streams of Broadway shows. The list goes on and on with new additions posted on the Internet hourly.

10 Ways to Find the Good in Life and Focus on the Positive

Community

Communities are also rallying around their vulnerable members as volunteers deliver groceries to shut-ins and therapists offer free webinars, live stream meditations, therapy sessions, exercise classes and tips for talking to kids about the virus.

In a recent article, The National Post focused on ways individuals and communities are helping each other during the pandemic. Acts of kindness are sweeping the globe. Communities have taken to Facebook to help each other where they can in a process called “caremongering.”  The posts range from people offering to do grocery runs, giving advice for applying for employment insurance and keeping each other updated on the latest COVID-19 news. According to Mita Hans, the founder of the Toronto group, the response has been the opposite of panic in people. It has brought out community and camaraderie and allowed these groups to deal with the needs of people who are at-risk.

In addition, stores are dedicating the first hour of opening to older adults and people with disabilities to allow a safe and sanitary shopping experience.

Lots of people are working hard to keep things going on a day-to-day basis, e.g. medical/healthcare workers, pharmacy workers, first responders, truckers, grocery workers, mail carriers, delivery people, journalists, civil services employees, airport personnel, bus and taxi drivers, etc. They are our heroes and let’s give them a shout-out and thank them for their service.

Benefits of Loving Out Loud

Positivity

When I read about what is happening around the world, I am filled with hope and positive regard for my fellow human beings. I choose to focus on our common humanity, resilience, and kindness– the goodness that is out there. It doesn’t mean I have a Pollyanna attitude or turn a blind eye to the suffering and pain people are experiencing.  Yes, there is panic buying as people raid store shelves and stock up on toilet paper. However, they are in the minority and account for only a small percentage of people.

Crisis can bring out the best in people  

 Inspiration

During this difficult time, I am inspired by the words of Anne Frank, a young German-born Jewish diarist and aspiring writer who spent twenty-five months in hiding in a secret attic in Amsterdam. She died of typhus in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in March 1945. In her diary she wrote, “In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death…If I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again.”

Bottom Line

I trust that this too will pass. We will get through this together. Actually, we ARE getting through this together, right now in the present moment, one day at a time.

The post Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on NaturallySavvy.com.

And yet, self-love is one of our biggest challenges. Loving ourselves has negative connotations because people often confuse it with selfishness, self-absorption, and egocentric behavior. It is often easier to love another person than ourselves. We don’t realize that, when we take care of ourselves and treat ourselves in a loving manner, we have more love to give. The biblical expression “my cup runneth over,” means I have more than enough for my needs.

We love our self in some of the following ways:

Accept and own all parts of ourselves.

Being true to ourselves, and living our lives authentically, includes recognizing our strengths and weaknesses; our good qualities and faults; our suffering and joy; our fears and courageous acts; etc. These dualities coexist in all of us. Recognizing and accepting them helps us integrate them into the totality of who we are.

Believe we have the ability to change any aspect of ourselves.

Self-awareness means taking an inventory of our personalities, behaviors, attitudes, and principles we live our lives by. We have the ability to change any aspect which does not conform to our self-image. We empower ourselves by making the commitment to do so, having patience for our process, and looking at ourselves with the eyes of understanding and love.

Make peace with childhood wounds and traumatic life experiences.

The memory of the past traumatic experiences may cause you psychic pain and/or make you feel wounded and scarred. Moving this memory from your direct vision, where you relive it regularly, into your peripheral vision will help you heal. You know the memory is there, but it no longer has its hold on you. Some wounds cannot be completely healed and may resurface during stressful times. When we release the emotional pain from these experiences, space in our psyche is freed up for vitality and joy.

Identify and assert our needs, and ensure they are met.

Many of us go through life unaware of our needs, or too afraid to express them to others. As children, many of us gave our power away to well-meaning, and sometimes not well-meaning, adults. We were told how to behave, act, and feel. Most of us were not encouraged to discover our interests and preferences. Decisions were made for us, and our needs and desires were not taken into account. Many of us still have those helpless children locked inside our psyches. Becoming an adult includes taking conscious control of our lives through actions such as expressing our needs, finding solutions, meeting our own needs, etc. It is important to claim our power and not feel helpless.

Establish boundaries.

Individuals who establish emotional, physical and sexual boundaries respect themselves enough and prevent others from crossing them. A sense of self requires physical boundaries to protect our bodies, and emotional boundaries to indicate where our emotions end and other people’s emotions begin. Emotional boundaries are necessary to separate our own feelings from those of others. Without strong boundaries, we have trouble saying no and we lose touch with our needs and wants. Setting boundaries empowers us to decide what we are willing to put up with. And in so doing, we teach others how to treat us.

Have the strength to decide, on our own, what is good for us.

When faced with important decisions, do your homework. Consult with family members, friends and colleagues. Empower yourself with as much information as possible. Then spend some quiet time listening to your intuitive voice. It is always communicating with us and letting us know which direction to take.

Read more about healthy lifestyle changes to make now

Engage in relationships with people who are supportive, respectful, loving and kind.

Your external environment reflects your inner world. If you want to assess your sense of self, look to your outer reality. Do you surround yourself with angry, disrespectful and critical people who are toxic and drain your energy? People cannot take advantage of us without our permission. The better we feel about ourselves, the more we engage in relationships with people who treat us with kindness and respect. We feel worthy and deserving of this type of treatment, and we will not put up with disrespectful behaviors.

Give up the need for approval and to be liked by everyone; tolerate criticism.

With low levels of self-esteem, we look for outside approval and suffer from the “disease to please.” The better we feel about ourselves, the more we can tolerate criticism and people’s disappointment in us. We no longer need to do things to please others because we want them to like us.

Create a living environment that nourishes us.

Your external environment is also a reflection of your inner process. A messy living environment (home, workplace, car) may be a reflection of the inner chaos of your psyche. As you get in touch with unresolved issues, bring them to consciousness, and heal them, your external environment will become more organized. Clutter impacts on our health by blocking energy in our bodies and minds. People often comment on how much lighter they feel when they give away clothes they no longer wear. The same is true when outdated magazines are passed on to others. Do you love the things in your home? Are they pleasing to your senses? Do they reflect who you are today? When you enter your home, do you experience feelings of well-being, or is your energy drained? Answer these questions honestly. Then take action to create a living space that nourishes and replenishes you.

Read more about whether multi-tasking is healthy

Honor ourselves with acts of loving-kindness and respect.

Do something special for yourself on a regular basis. In so doing, you give yourself a message in which you are deserving of this special effort, and are important enough to take the time to do it. It can be as simple as preparing a quiet bath, watching a favorite movie, cooking a special meal, etc. The key is scheduling adequate time with no interruption. The message is: “I am important enough to do this for myself.”

Participate in pleasurable activities that give joy and meaning to your life.

Ask yourself the question “What makes me happy?” Answer, then go out and do it!

The post How to Practice Self Love & Be Happier appeared first on NaturallySavvy.com.