Resuming little coping

While we wind down from the Christmas period, twelfth night having passed so decorations, cards and the nativity scene being taken down and tidied away following the muted New Year celebrations things here have changed.

Specifically as of Wednesday England is in full national lockdown aka Lockdown v3.0 with us being pretty close to but a little different when it comes to the rules set out in law which allows for fines to be issued.

I'm not going to get into any and all of the politics around it not least as a career in the same really messed me up bigtime and the majority of us at this point are bystanders in this event no one would of chosen.

The question arises though to what personal response in terms of daily living this makes and for me it is to use what I learned from last March to ensure I am in the best possible place mentally and physically to survive this latest wave of the pandemic.

The first is to follow the rules to the best of my ability, considering carefully why the rule is there and the risks involved as all rules and guidance is based on most situations and was framed with inner city areas in mind as much anywhere else.

There is little denying I have issues with anxiety which of itself this pandemic is not helping one iota with so while the wording is that people "should" only go out once a day for exercise for reasons connected with immediate mental health I may need to go out briefly for more than once if I'm having an anxiety attack.

In that event I would go the least distance from the front door, keep within areas of very low footfall in the immediate area avoiding where the shops are until such time as I am more stable and okay to be back indoors.

Given parts of the immediate area back on to open countryside and have woodland it's easier for me to do this safely than others reliant on just the park.

Unlike last time playgrounds are open which should help.

The second just staying in the whole headspace of that boy and not focussing beyond any important announcements you need to observe.

It is way too easy to become a news junkie watching 24 hour rolling news with website refreshing on a computer and your phone following tweets and yet actually we have no direct impact upon it save following the rules and keeping everyone safe.

It only ups the anti when it comes to fears and generally feeling anxious about the situation where switching off and doing something active helps more.

For me that decision to have comic subscriptions set up means I have at hand and at no risk of infection by going into town things that will lift my spirits up which given my more boy-like mind makes more sense that I can look forward to.

The other is with care I can continue to play, explore and learn will outdoors replacing screen staring anxiety with activity, creating good feelings and emotions and learn things while being the adult boy I am about and always looking the part.

That for me is likely to be the best way of dealing with this until such time as restrictions may be relaxed or lifted entirely which is expect to run to late spring at least.