Holiday Coping Tips With Humor

"When I find myself in the cellar of affliction, I always look about for the wine.” 

--Samuel Rutherford

You all know I had an emotional meltdown the first month of the quarantine way back in April.  I grabbed my hiking my hiking boots and hiked Badger  for all I was worth, which didn't feel like much at the time.  I realized that I wasn't choosing a great thought life. AND our thoughts create our emotions which lead to our behaviors that give us our results. We already talked about this last week--that I can choose my responses to my circumstances. 

Here are some responses that may help you keep your sanity during this time, as well. 

1. Air guitar and dance parties. These two things can be done alone. I found I became the master at air guitar to "Whipping Post," an old song by the Allman Brothers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfrSIUE3iAE  
I included the link so you could try it yourself. Whipping Post became my theme song for the quarantine. When I got tired of playing air guitar, I just danced in my office. That always made me feel better.

2. Zoom bingo, taco nights and/or virtual home tours.  My daughter and I got together and played games on zoom. One company CEO that I talked with got all of her team together on Zoom. They all made tacos at home, grabbed adult beverages and proceeded to have virtual  "taco Tuesday" with each other. My kids were able to "visit" my new home via facetime. AND we compared turkey photos on Thanksgiving. Mine won, hands down:)

3. Decision coin toss.  Sometimes it's just hard to decide...sweats or pants for a zoom meeting. I facilitated a virtual training last week and one of the team members word a gorgeous sweater. Turns out it was her pajama top. Who knew?  Do I get dressed today or not?  Make-up or not?  Take a nap or not?  Lipstick or not before masking up for the grocery store.  Flip a coin. It's way less stressful than really thinking. 

4. Don't worry about whether they like their Christmas gifts. This one's from Dennis.  How do you buy for someone that you haven't spent time with this year?  What do they want?  (Besides this whole COVID thing to be over.) It's the thought that counts...unless you give someone an autographed picture of Trump and you know they don't like him.   

I don't mean to make light of the circumstances. There's been tremendous loss; loss of loved ones to death, loss of jobs and businesses to shutdowns, loss of relationships to differing beliefs and opinions.  I have found that humor and fun has been one of the things that has restored the sanity of those that I coached and trained...and to me, as well.

Every trial or struggle presents an opportunity to look at things differently than we have before. Look back to the toughest event in your life. You made it. I may have been ugly, but you made it. AND we will make it through this one, as well. One last suggestion, walk through this time with someone else. Don't go it alone. Besides, your ideas may be what restores that other person to sanity.   

Need some help? I'm just an email away--happy to chat...and maybe even teach you air guitar!

Sanely typed,

Jan

Jan McDonald
Maxwell Team