Covid-19 – drjuls

17Aug

Julie LyleBalance, Beautiful Life, Covid-19, Gratitude, The Journey of Life

Choosing to ‘Come Around Again’

I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again
So don’t mind if I fall apart
There’s more room in a broken heart

—Carly Simon

Carly Simon’s song “Coming Around Again” captures the fading vibrancy of a romantic relationship. The lyrics embrace the demands of parenting and managing mundane tasks that chip away at the early days of heart fluttering newness. Its message is quite practical while inspirational: be patient, trusting, believe in love, steady on and what we once knew to be true, can come around again.

Since March 2020, we stumbled through unknown territory with worried anticipation; would what we used to experience ever come around again? Traveling abroad, attending a packed concert hall, meandering through masses of crowds exiting a ballgame, or jumping into an Uber without a mask? Would our joy, spontaneity, courage and willingness to explore come around again? Time is an elusive yet reliable companion. For many, time faded and became no more due to illness and death. Yet, for those of us fortunate to be here to answer the call today, we now greet what was a far distant wished-for tomorrow during these Covid years.

My son and I traveled to Ireland and the UK in June and I returned with an abundance of jet-lag and fulfillment. Awakening each day in Dublin followed by Cornwall, I found myself buzzing with anticipation and emboldened by crisp winds and strong English breakfast tea. Oh how I had missed the joy of discovering uncharted streets, familiarizing myself with new territory, being a contemporary guest on ancestral soil, eager to be seen as a brave newcomer answering the invitation of the faraway wind, Neolithic stones, Gaelic tunes, and the rugged Irish Sea.

I was a child, eager to open every birthday package simultaneously, each gift more spectacularly perfect than the next. Landscapes deeply rooted with centuries of tales, accents thick in Guinness and an abundance of fish and chips, penetrating folklore melodies of poignant longing and seagulls squawking as if to say “Welcome back! Glad you came around again!”

Make room in your heart, dive into the curiosity pool, wake up to your dreams, venture and dabble in curiosity, share smiles with fellow voyagers and cheers to each of us coming around again.

13May

Julie LyleBalance, Beautiful Life, Covid-19, Gratitude, Health, Life Challenges, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

Build the nest, for the bird of hope needs a place to rest.

Build the nest, for the bird of hope needs a place to rest.

Many arriving on the therapeutic couch are weary travelers, stretched to capacity and fatigued having marched across a risky, unknown terrain for over two years. The pandemic, workplace demands from home, challenged by new dimension of effective parenting, rising costs of supplies and since February, a harrowing war in Ukraine; violence and abject suffering within each click of an iPhone. Mt. Peace and Mt. Harmony are distant summits, barely visible, climbing elevations seemingly, hopelessly out of reach.

What happens when we lose our grasp of hope’s existence? Shaking our heads and wringing our hearts, is the concept of “losing” hope synonymous with denying hope? When we deny that hope exists, our thoughts become an internal “Whack a Mole” game. With every glimmering pop of hope, we grab our hammer of despair and whack it down.

Hope: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

Denial: the action of declaring something to be untrue.

Perhaps “Hope” thrives when we become more paced, patient with our expectations. Scale back from the quest to reach the peak of global Kumbaya (albeit a righteous aim), try on more “Hope” and wear it for awhile.

With that, an Emily Dickinson poem archived in one of my college literature brain cells, landed in my cerebral inbox.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Dare I be as bold as to challenge Emily, yet I believe “Hope” IS asking something of us. The bird of hope needs to be greeted with a warm, welcoming nest, to find shelter within our hearts, our minds, our souls. “Hope” needs to be fed by our belief in healing, wisdom, learning and striving to be courageous. “Hope” needs to be quenched with the belief we can be kinder, truer and better.

“Hope” exists when it has a nest in you.

07Nov

Julie LyleCovid-19, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

Daylight Awakens

There is an abundance of repeated messaging from clients as to how they WANT to resume the pace they kept BC (Before Covid) yet the “get up and go” muscle has atrophied during the pandemic. Like many, I reduced my hustle bustle believing I would wait it out, you know, like Elvis has left the building…when Covid has left the planet…then, I would resume my go, go, go schedule. 🙂

For over these 20 months, we adapted to reducing the multiplicity of our lives. Our “Yes” responses were slim and our “No’s” were plentiful stemming from health safety concerns, “too much of a hassle” sentiments, or a comfortable complacency of “maybe tomorrow.” As the world is waking up, we not only have to exercise a flabby “social” muscle, we also need enhancements of patience, optimism and tolerance due to resuming sitting in traffic, short staffing and long waits at restaurants, airport delays and engaging with humans who are coming out of hibernation more like growling hungry bears rather than smiling butterflies. With daylight savings and the first week of November already gobbled up, what a perfect “wake up” call to consider ways to exercise the personal interaction and outreach muscle.

Select one person you have seen little or not at all during Covid. Reach out to this person and ask them to join you in a place you would like to visit; a favorite shopping area, lunch spot, hiking trail, beach lookout, etc. Set a date and time to meet at this location and relish a wakening! As I mentioned in an earlier post, poetry is a way of freeing my mind and weaving ideas with words, here is another sampling of what poetry can capture.

A Wakening

It rolls in, a velvet dew curtain during
early morning stirrings,
eclipsing the night, a stealth invader.
It alters the climate of familiarity;
a chill to be denied, dismissed.
It stirs, an irritating nudge to complacency.

“Wake up” it whispers.
Fear makes heavy the eyelids.
Pull the covers up, hit the snooze button,
lay still, play dead and make its recurrence, illicit, unwanted.

Silence instinct and there will be no bumping into walls,
or tumbling into pits.
Only inevitable wrinkles of blame and what if’s.

We papermache with history and habits;
lumpy layers of loyalty to others, flammable glue.
“Damaged” becomes the label, emotionally inked.

“Wake up” the tone demanding.
Yanking off the covers, painfully exposed, the place from which disappointment breeds.
“WAKE UP” the relentless messenger, the soul’s drill sergeant losing patience!
To linger is to submit to terminal regret.
To sit up, swing legs over the edge, reach into the thick unknown…tapping toes forward, seeking a surface to trust, to grope, breathe, and proceed into the abyss of change…this is to be alive.

14Jul

Julie LyleBalance, Covid-19, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

If it’s important, you’ll find a way

If it’s important, you’ll find a way.
If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.

I have heard the lament from both clients and friends, “I thought I would get more done during Covid.” Mine was to clean up the pile of college bedding and dorm room items my son deposited in a corner of our garage following a hurried campus exit last March 2020. Guess what?? We never got around to it. And now, as the calendar mockingly reminds me, we have six (6) weeks to dust, sort, toss and repack as he resumes his collegiate adventure!

Cleaning out the garage, doing taxes, starting an uncomfortable conversation, leaving an unfulfilling job, finishing an academic degree, ending alcohol dependency, beginning counseling, pulling weeds, scheduling an overdue dentist appointment. How to find a way rather than find an excuse?

Here’s a suggestion, start at the basics.

During Covid, our calendars became unnecessary, every day duplicated the next, we lost the rhythm of planning. Today I felt very efficient as I walked into a Staples and bought a July 2021-2022 18-month calendar. I must say, just purchasing it made me feel a step closer to organization!
Next, scribble/brainstorm/data dump those excursions, chores, events, projects, items you would like to, or have to, take care of. Put them on the calendar. Legitimizing the task is a powerful way of mustering up energy, putting the gloves on and digging in… to find a way.

Come on, July is knocking…halfway thru this year, why not shift from “finding excuses” to finding a way!

21May

Julie LyleCovid-19, Life Challenges, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

Sail On Sailor!

Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them. Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.
—Anonymous

I have dreamed of living at sea, on a statuesque sailboat careening over hypnotic waves as the canvas sails dance with salty foam breezes. In my dreams, I am a sailor, maybe even a pirate! The closest “ship” I captain is my boogie board affectionately named “Betty” where I merge with the wave and rely on her to chaperone me to shore. Mesmerized by the vastness of the ocean’s eternal depths, I am consistently humbled to be a small creature playing on such an immense, vibrant and fluid playground.

Last year, during the pandemic, we sailed our ships through uncharted waters, at times weathering raucous storms and other days reveling in the calm, quiet solitude of staying docked. The social, financial, political and interpersonal conflicts, uncertainty about restoring familiarity of the past as well as what shape the future would take were just some of the anxiety inducing riptides and currents which made for a staggering journey.

Tossed about, perhaps shaky and more weathered, our ships’ wheel may feel wobbly, our compass bent, energy depleted, optimism exhausted, yet the horizon is steady. Our proverbial ship did not capsize!

As the opening quote reads, “Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.”

How to keep your ship from springing a leak:

Get outside every day! Gaze at the ocean and if not able to get to the shore, then head to your backyard, patio, neighborhood sidewalk. Remind yourself of nature and how it is unveiled, inviting and constant. Trees and rose bushes don’t wear masks. 😊
Make daily news/media information choices about how much time you will “donate” to absorbing others opinions, frustrations, hostilities and uncertainties. Intentionally decide to not take on the unnecessary “weight” of division which could capsize you.
Keep your ship in good shape! Walk, run, ride, stretch, eat well, “clean up the galley!”
Combine desirable treasures…enjoy a bubble bath while eating popcorn, watch a movie on your iPad wrapped in a blanket on your lawn chair, call up a friend and both of you apply a face mask while catching up.
Dive deep! Specifically flag a few hours to explore an unknown: alternative music, a recipe with “out of the ordinary” ingredients, move furniture, read a different genre of literature, pray, meditate, pick up an instrument!

My favorite Beach Boys tune is “Sail on Sailor.” It contains a very simple inspirational message… sail on. Your ship is strong, capable, determined and has made it through the storm of 2020 and now, with some repairs and polish, your vessel will carry you to calmer waters as we welcome summer. Eye on the horizon! Sail on, sail on, sailor.

23Apr

Julie LyleBeautiful Life, Covid-19, Personal Growth

The 3 “R’s” of SpRRRing!

Spring has sprung! The air is sun-baked crisp, flowers with popping colors abound and many of us have had “shots” in the arm as vaccines are also blooming everywhere. As a healthcare worker, I received both rounds of Moderna and found myself standing on the edge of a pool of possibilities. Should I fly somewhere? Dine in a restaurant? Welcome clients back to in person private practice? Hug a friend? As we re-enter life from pandemic panic to pandemic pragmatism, it is wise to enlist your own version of “know thy self.” As I gazed at this expanse of options, there were many resounding “R” words…renewal, reward, rejoice. Yet, there were three “R’s” which surfaced and began to float hope…Remember, Resume and Reclaim.

Remember

After over a year of remaining at or very close to home, it is natural to view returning to travel, workplace, social events, shopping and crowds with skepticism as the pandemic transformed most aspects of life into risky territories. How will you re-establish comfort and trust in a particular activity or setting? How will you remember who you used to be?

In the heat of summer and eager to cool off at a pool or the beach, are you inclined to tumble head over heels and immerse your entire body in chlorinated or salty water? Or would you rather slowly ease in and sample the temperature an inch and a toe at a time? We each have our own style of facing the unknown and strangely, that is what life may resemble as each of us face this “re-entry” process. Honest ownership of knowing your unique level of comfort, pace and listening to your instincts will be essential.

The treasure of time passing is to remember all you have learned about yourself, trusted resources and loyal friends during the pandemic. Once you are vaccinated, perhaps having a more detailed conversation with your family physician to gather “re-entry” suggestions will be useful. Inquiring and sharing strategies with friends as to how they are embarking on life again would be a fruitful conversation. The key is to remember you are very capable of re-entering and resuming your life, just as you proved capable to living with Covid.

Resume

Websters defines “to resume” as the act of returning to and beginning something again after an interruption. To pick something up again: to go back to using or doing (something, such as a way of behaving).

The Covid-19 storm interrupted and disrupted all our lives. What path would you like to discover and journey on now? What have you missed? What is calling to be picked up again? Now is the time to reflect on what you set aside during Covid and make a plan to “picking” it back up again, according to your comfort level. Tennis? Volunteering? Dance lessons?

There are many paths appearing open to exploration, either a familiar path or perhaps a brand new one filled with curiosity and renewed readiness to embark, learn and experience aspects of life sorely missed.

Reclaim

What does it mean to “reclaim” one’s life? Webster’s defines it to rescue from an undesirable state: to restore to a previous natural state.

Will you be “reclaiming” your previous “natural state” of life prior to the pandemic? Or was the “undesirable state” the life you may have been living pre-Covid? Consider this: there now exists a choice to NOT resume undesirable stress, strain and frenetic movement which many of us had assimilated as “normal.” After a year of putting the brakes on and pulling over to a rest stop, how you merge back onto the highway of life is completely in your control. What will you reclaim that existed before Covid? What will you hold on to as a result of it?

The choice is yours.

04Apr

Julie LyleBeautiful Life, Covid-19, Gratitude, Life Challenges, Personal Growth, The Journey of Life

“Lifted” to the Other Side of Challenge

Definition of “lifted”: To raise from a lower to higher position.

As many of you know, I love all things British, especially my friends who live in London. Years ago, while visiting them during a shared holiday in Cornwall, they played Lighthouse Family, a British band comprised of two young “mates” who had met while working at the same pub in the mid 90’s. A fantastic duo, they created magical, easy listening music and gained a dedicated audience.

Whenever I want to transport myself back to a cherished time spent on brisk walks along Cornish seaside cliffs, strolls into the village for afternoon tea or an evening of cheers with a pint at the pub for trivia game night, I play their songs, always beginning with “Lifted.” Although its appearance has spiritual overtones, the band and their music are not representative of a particular religious affiliation, instead this particular song holds a message of coming out of a darkness, beyond the rain, to joyfully experience what is on the other side…timely, eh?

The band separated for many years and reunited last year with a live performance during the Promenade Summer concerts in London. Watching this video will naturally ignite a variety of emotions: Shock, seeing so many people shoulder to shoulder, smiling, dancing, with lots of social closeness, not distance. There may be a longing for “the good ol’ days” when we united with similar crowds to sway together with a love of shared music and festivities. There may be a question of when will you be able to voyage to distant lands again and promenade through foreign parks, and mingle with others who may, like you, be checking off items from their bucket list?

Welcome these thoughts and their adjoining emotions. The pandemic forced us to face the unexpected and with it mounds of uncertainty, anxiety, waiting and wondering. Passover, Easter and Springtime are here and invite us to contemplate gratitude and renewal. Please gift yourself 5 minutes as you watch this video and tap into our shared collective spirit. Focus on hopefulness and envision how as more and more are receiving the vaccine, we are being “lifted” to the other side of this challenge, glimpsing a day when life will be restored, our doors open and we are “lifted” to health and recovery.

26Feb

Julie LyleBeautiful Life, Covid-19, Gratitude, Personal Growth

Perspective

I have been using the term “perspective” more often than usual lately. Of course, I love words and turned to my reliable Merriam-Webster and looked up the definition. Perspective: A mental view or prospect; the capacity to view things in their true relation or relative importance.

Against the backdrop of the pandemic, and by working, and socializing, virtually we have learned more about our own, and others, perspectives on health, risk-taking, problem-solving, coping, humanity and global well-being. The protracted stress of the virus and now the re-entry wobbles, call upon each of us to dig deep for a point of view which can help us maintain optimism, hope, acceptance, patience, and restore motivation to restart activities and lifestyle. The saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a timely testimony to how we each view our lives back (last year), center (right now) and front (the next months). We are the “holders” of our perspectives and what we see as beautiful, vital and true.

I recalled a short tale I have used numerous times during workshops. As a disclaimer, I did not author this original concept yet did edit it a bit. 😊

One day a wealthy father took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how impoverished others can be and to expose his son to a lifestyle of “less.” His hope was to heighten his son’s gratitude for the riches and lifestyle he was born into. They spent a day and a night on the farm of a very modest income family. When they returned from their trip the father asked his son, “What did you think about our time on the farm?”

“Very good Dad!”

“Did you see how very poor people can be?” the father asked.

“Oh yeah!” replied the son. “And what did you learn?” asked his dad.

The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden, they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden, they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard, they have the whole horizon.”

As the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless. “And oh,” his son added, “Thanks Dad for showing me how poor WE are!”

Here’s to hope for expanding your perspective to embrace the “riches” of re-joining one another.

06Jan

Julie LyleCovid-19, Personal Growth

Bring Clarity to 2021

Close your eyes to see clearly. Be still and you will hear the truth.
—Ancient Zen saying

Just a year ago, 2020 escorted in a new decade and with it, lots of clever rides on the metaphor wagon with “clarity,” “vision,” and “focus” arriving on January 1st, 2020.

We splashed about in a pool of constant stimulation, whizzing to and from work, shuttling kids to school and afternoons and weekends brimming with activities. Vibrating cell phones and packed Google calendars, dinners, concerts and dings of incoming texts, schedules on the swift moving conveyor belt of life and I, like many of you, believed I was seeing every day very clearly. 😊

And then, March 20th, 2020, Covid-19 became the “new” lens we attached to our vision. A global “shut in” took place, leaving bustling shops vacant, hushed the noisy movement of humanity, emptied cluttered freeways and shielded our faces. From the stillness of staying at home, our view of the world shifted and we adapted.

For the first time in over 30 years of providing therapy, I joined every client in a shared experience, each of us reacting to this changed universe. Individually we confronted how to manage risk and orchestrate more direct control of our time. The absence of “going out” equaled the inevitable focus on relationships with family members, our home environments, unfinished projects, neglected hobbies and friendship connections. As much as we were witnessing the unimaginable of Covid’s arrival, without the rigor of timelines and coming and going, our familiar vision was “closed” and we were quite shockingly, and perhaps gratefully, invited to see clearly, become still and find our truth.

Take a moment to consider what “truths” became clear to you during this past year. Here are a few of mine:

Savor health, it is not a given.
Practice joy and laughter, they are lifelines.
Distribute gratitude, the finest currency.
Water curiosity, wisdom will grow.
Excavate hope and patience, daily.
Love life completely, every moment.

Sending you an abundance of hope for a New Year filled with courageous clarity, enlightened truths and welcomed renewal!

02Nov

Julie LyleBeautiful Life, Covid-19, Life Challenges, Personal Growth

Ca suffit, reste tranquille

During my college summers, I worked as an au pair (nanny) in France. I adored the history, pastries, boutiques, villages, lush countryside, bustle of the Champs-Elysees, Le Metro underground transport and Bateau Mouche rides on the Seine. Yet most of all, I loved, and was mesmerized by, the language.

My adorable charges often spoke, ran and bicycled at speeds I struggled to match, yet one saying I used frequently was … “Ca suffit, reste tranquille.” Literally translated it is, “That’s enough, stay calm.” It always flowed more as a caution than a reprimand, an invitation not a dictate. When our fears, future anxieties and distress speed up, it may be an opportunity to tell ourselves just this.

As we begin this week, many may be experiencing tensions regarding possible election results. I encourage you to take a moment and close your eyes, inhaling a full, glorious breath and say to yourself (in whatever language you prefer), “That’s enough. Stay calm.”

Music has always reminded me of the heart and soul of our humanity and never fails to bring me joy and optimism. I sincerely hope these selections will do the same for you. Ca suffit, reste tranquille.

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