Ten Positive Things To Do During COVID19 Lockdown

It looks like we’ve all got about 6 months to fill in social isolation. How you are going to spend the time? Are you going to use it productively, or waste it bingeing on NetFlix until you can’t see any more?

It’s times like these when thinking creatively is particularly important. And since I’m here to do your thinking for you, here are ten positive things to do during the COVID19 lockdown that will leave you better off in the future when we can all go out again:

1. Meditate

Never had time to meditate in the past? Well, you do now. The best time to meditate is first thing in the morning so you start the day with clarity. This is also a great way to stay grounded and manage your COVID19 anxiety. There are heaps of apps that can help you learn to calm your mind with both individual and guided meditations. My personal favourite is Insight Timer, where you can even meet and message other meditators around the world. If you get really stuck for how to start, you can learn the basics from this helpful video on How to Meditate.

2. Exercise

In addition to now being your office, your home is also your personal gym. Exercise helps keep you fit and calms your mind, so start your day with some exercise before diving (instead of driving) into your work and your sanity will thank you. Push-ups, sit-ups and squats can all be done with no equipment, and you can always drag out those dumbbells you have stored in the garage but never use. Yoga also requires minimal equipment and will give your body a solid workout. There are plenty of online videos to teach you how to do it without injuring yourself, and many yoga studios are now running virtual classes. For something gentler, try starting with Qi Gong.

3. Learn To Play A Musical Instrument

Learning to play piano, guitar, drums, ukulele or any other musical instrument is a lifetime goal. Any one of them will take you a good six months of daily practise just to get the basics sorted and successfully tackling a challenging goal like this will boost your self-esteem. Sure, there will be moments of frustration along the way but learning how to navigate this is part of the challenge. Over time you’ll grow to love playing as you see your skills improve.

It’s never too late to start learning to play music. I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was 40, and now I’m studying music full-time at university. If you had a bad childhood experience with a musical instrument, this is an opportunity to rewrite it. The key is to pick an instrument that inspires you now as an adult, rather than the one your mother wanted you to learn as a kid. Many music teachers are now offering online lessons, and there are heaps of apps that can teach you how to play your chosen instrument. My personal favourite is Yousician.

4. Learn To Relax

You’re always so busy running around doing things that you’re going to end up giving yourself cancer, some weird autoimmune disease, or a newfangled “lifestyle illness”. Now that you’ve got some serious time out, how about learning to relax a little? All the other suggestions in this article will help with this goal too.

5. Learn To Regulate Your Emotions

Many of us rely on other people to help us regulate our own emotions. With the advent of universal social isolation, it’s time to learn to do this for ourselves. After all, that’s what mature adults are supposed to do anyway; otherwise you’ll always be at the mercy of other people’s moods.

Learn to express and/or sit with your emotions in a healthy, constructive manner; especially the unpleasant ones. Once you’ve got this mastered, you’ll find you get on much better with yourself and with other people, and that life in general goes much more smoothly. All the previous suggestions such as relaxing, playing music and meditation can also help assist with this goal. For more tips on emotional regulation, see Part 2 of The Confident Man Program Guide, the bonus e-Book Keys To Emotional Mastery, and the audio interview with Peter Saxon.

Fuck that virus shit, I’m using the opportunity to improve my life!

6. Get To Know Your Family

You know those people you live with? They’re your family, or your flatmates. You might find you enjoy their company more if you get to know them in a new way while spending so much time together. Otherwise they’re likely to drive you batmeat crazy. See if you can appreciate things about them you didn’t see before and practice communicating with them in new ways. If family have been a challenge for you in the past, I highly recommend reading Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life and putting it into practise with everyone in your life.

7. Learn How To Cook

Never had time to learn to cook properly before? Well, you do now. Green leafy vegetables are your friends because they’ve got essential micronutrients that are good for enhancing your immune response. Less red meat and more vegetables will most likely improve your diet, and now is a good time to learn interesting ways to cook them. Have a look at that old cookbook on your shelf that you’ve never read before, or hit the internet for more free recipe ideas than you’ll ever need.

8. Call Your Friends

Speaking of friends, you know those people you like but generally don’t have time to actually hang out with? You’ve been neglecting them. Now is an ideal opportunity to rectify this by talking to them on the phone, Skype or Zoom. This is especially important if you live alone and have no other social contact; otherwise you’re going to go batshit crazy and end up with no friends and no social skills to make new ones once we’re all released.=

Friends are like family that you get to choose yourself, so choose wisely and keep in touch with them. Call one friend each day after you’ve finished your daily work, so you don’t end up frying your brain on six months of solitary evening television.

9. Connect With Your Imagination

It’s time to learn to come up with your own ideas about how to fill in your time. Young children have no problem with this, it’s just that our imagination got beaten out of us by well-intentioned but foolish adults who had already lost theirs. Now is a great time to reconnect with our imaginations and learn to live back in that childhood world of fantasy, wonder and limitless possibility. It sure beats the heck out of living in the real world right now.

10. Heal Your Childhood Trauma

If you’ve experienced emotional abandonment as a child, the social isolation restrictions imposed as a result of COVID19 are likely to bring a lot of anxiety to the surface. You may feel unconsciously that you’ve been abandoned by society, which is a projection of your infantile feelings of parental abandonment. While this is likely to be very uncomfortable, it’s also an opportunity to heal your emotional abandonment wounds from the past now that these feelings have risen to the surface in the present.

Healing the emotional pain from our past frees us to live with greater freedom in the future, but in order to heal the pain we’ve got to feel the pain, in measured doses that don’t overwhelm us. To feel our feelings we’ve got to stop running around and distracting ourselves from this pain all the time. COVID19 has stopped us all in our tracks anyway, so this is a great opportunity.

Most psychologists, therapists and coaches are working online now so it’s an excellent opportunity to reach out to one and start working through your childhood trauma from the comfort of your own home. Find an emotionally focused therapist and start healing your past so you can live your best possible future, when the time comes to leave the house again.