Your Guide To A Contagious Lifestyle During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Managing Fears | Creative Community | Home Isolation Survival Tips | Supporting Small Businesses | Supporting Each Other

Anyone else ready to still actually live their life in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic? Me too, me too. But instead of being passive, dismissive or letting that deep panic set in, I want to propose something different. What if we adapt – together?

What if we find ways to still enjoy life even though we cannot travel to those epic locations?

Here are places I’m going to miss visiting right now:

What if we learn to enjoy life in our own homes, on lockdowns, during school closures, during the coronavirus pandemic?

At times, I’ve been bedridden for days, stuck home, unable to drive, unable to button my own pants, unable to hold my two year old daughter, lonely and unable to do anything but be alive. I’ve cried lonely tears, wept and wondered, “how could this happen to ME?” But in the end, I decided I’m going to feel all the feels then make the most of what I’ve got.

Being chronically ill for almost 5 years now has taught me to be resilient, and these times are requiring that of ALL of us.

Will you join me in learning resilience together? Let’s learn to act in love and not fear and let compassion rule our actions.

In this blog post I’m going to be providing resources for you all. Self care resources, getting creative with ways to connect if you’re practicing social distancing, fun ways to enjoy being stuck at home, how to support small business and each other right now.

Are you in?

So for today, let’s start calling this pandemic a season, because like a true weather season things get worse, things get better and most importantly things change.

Your guide to living a contagious lifestyle in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic 

Managing Fears with Self Care

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Keep doing the things you love. Fear can put our bodies into fight or flight mode and this can kill our immune systems and be so hard on our hearts. Finding resources and setting yourself up for success during this time of life is so important. We live in a beautiful age of endless possibilities with how much we can access because of the internet. So here are some of my favorite self care tools for managing fear right now.

Get outside

The sun is absolutely amazing. There is so much media going on right now about how the sun actually helped America in the past survive epidemics by getting outside to enjoy the nutrients and vitamins from its rays. Wear sunscreen or sun covering if you need it. I find I have about a 30 minute window before I burn even in the winter. My favorite sunscreen is

Even sitting in the sunshine while inside can be beautiful for your body if you are in home isolation and don’t have access to a patio or yard. If you have a pet you’ll likely see them practicing this practice of sunbathing daily.

Eat Fruits and Veggies 

Obvious, right, but I know it’s so hard when you’re feeling stressed, you want all the chocolate, wine, beer,  junk food, and fats. But right now is when your body needs nutrients the most. I personally turn to raw honey, figs, potatoes and bananas when I’m stressed. Our family’s current favorite simple treat is berries topped with raw honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.

Meditation

Whenever I hit a low point in life I first let those feelings in, remembering feelings are a part of me but do not have to consume me. They need a voice but not always an action.

Have you felt fear in your heart right now? Fear of missing out on life, fear of other people overreacting so much you cannot do what you want to do, fear of death, fear of financial loss, fear of being without, fear of being alone, fear of getting sick…

Whatever your particular fear is, what if I told you it’s ok to be afraid but that a great existence can be had in the eternal presence of Love?

Before you continue your scrolling can I ask you to PAUSE. And read this slowly.

Go back and read that again.

Friends, love is ALWAYS greater. Capitalize it, call it Divine, call it God, call it destiny, hope faith, whatever you will… love is always greater.

Will you join me now by listening to this audio as I lead you into a time of meditation and breath of prayer to call our minds and bodies into this truth that Love can hold our fear and lead us in every action we take.

Tell me how you’re feeling after this meditation? And it’s ok if you feel absolutely the same. Bookmark it and play anytime you feel fear creeping up.

Yoga

Where are all my yoga lovers at?  Saturday March 21 at 10MDT I’ll be going live on @celebrateagain with my first ever 20 minute yoga live class! (Reading this after March 21? Join my newsletter to learn about more live yoga classes I’ll be hosting across different social media platforms.) In this season of uncertainty and ever-changing plans I want to help us all adapt with kindness and love. I think it’s so important to set time aside to just CHILL, so will you join me as I go live from my living room?

I’ll be keeping this low key so you may see a small child pop in or my pup decide it’s time to play, but I’m going to keep it real because I want you to have permission to keep it real too.

If you cannot make it don’t worry! It’ll replay here for 24 hours and my goal is to have this go live on other platforms too!

What you need to do? Mark your calendars, carve out a space for yourselves, ask a partner to help with kids if you want time alone and most importantly, send me what you’d like to work on emotionally or physically during our practice! 

You can mark you iCal here. Or Google calendar here.

Side note: this will be a class catered to a general audience, so having some previous knowledge of yoga is helpful but not required. And you totally don’t have to be flexible to do this. Let’s just let go of that silly yoga excuse now and instead use it to motivate you to try it. On another note, if yoga is unsafe for you, feel free to just enjoy the meditative practice and move as fits your body.  Talk to your doc about practicing if you have any current health issues

Excited to practice with you all!

If you aren’t a fan of yoga, I’d encourage you to seek out digital exercising videos or communities you can join! The home gym practice is a real thing. Just Google what work out you like to do and I bet you’ll find something you’ll love and can do at home.

Emotional Processing

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned through my personal counseling journey is that while emotions are real and can be intense, they will not overcome you. You will not get lost in your emotions. Your soul/being exists with your emotions, but it is not always ruled by them. Trust that if you give them a voice without judgement, they can be set free and move and flow as they need to. I learned this concept during sessions with my counselor, the lovely KJ Ramsey (with a booking called This Too Shall Last coming out early this summer!)

It’s so important to process your emotions in a safe and healthy way. While I’m absolutely not a licensed therapist I personally have found these tools helpful.

• Deal with your anger by talking to a loved one non-aggressively or grab a ball of any kind and throw it someplace safe outside where it cannot harm anyone. We have a medicine ball that we call our family angry ball that we’ll take outside and throw it as hard as we can into the ground. Screaming into pillows has also been effective for our family.
• Give yourself space to cry. I know it’s such a vulnerable expression for many of us but sometimes watching a sad movie or sitting alone in some place to just safely cry is so beautiful for our souls.
• Take time to process your thoughts. Call a safe friend or set aside uninterrupted time to talk with your partner. Ask them if you can process with them, that you may not need answers or solutions but just need an empathetic ear. Ask them to listen without interruption and be supportive of you. It may seem silly to ask for these things but communicating your needs is so helpful.
• I personally love to journal. Asking myself how has the day made me feel today? What is my heart telling me right now? Are there any emotions I’ve had to suppress today that need a voice? What is a thought that keeps replaying in my head? 

Go back to breathing, meditation, prayer or movement if you feel overwhelmed and reach out to licensed therapists when you need to. Many of them can talk over the phone or video chat right now.

Set Boundaries With Media – ALL Media

Is it just me or is it hard to not use social media? This past Sunday I took off a day from social media. It was the first time I’ve done that in months and it was FREAKING awesome! As a business owner myself it’s so hard to do this but my heart really needed it. I got outside with my family, enjoyed the sound of a small creek on the trail we were walking around, soaked up the sun, sat in silence without the need to scroll endlessly, spent time journaling through some thoughts and had extra emotional energy to play with my daughter and show up to my marriage. It’s always amazing what I find when I take out or adjust one piece of my life. 

It can be helpful for you too to set some boundaries for your media exposure right now. Here’s some ideas:

• Don’t look at your phone past 8pm
• Set a time for the amount of time you spend on social media or set up your phone’s time limit controls for different media
• Read one news article per day 
• Look at the CDC and your local authority recommendations once a day
• Make a boundary for you and your partner to not talk about the coronavirus after 9pm or an hour before bed

Get Creative with Community During Social Distancing  

Can I tell you something kinda silly? I recently took this silly but fun creative personality types test and my result was The Innovator. Basically when things get rough, I’m your girl. My mind goes absolutely wild (in a good way) when things get hard or there is a problem to solve. It’s my true flow state. So, now that most of us are practicing social distancing but maybe are truly social people, how the heck do we keep interacting in meaningful, fun ways?

Here is my creative guide to staying connected!

• Have a virtual dance party! 
  • Using Instagram live: share your screen when different people take the dance floor!
  • Using Google Chat: jump on google chat or whatever video sharing platform you’d like and have one person be the DJ. Share your screens so you can have a dance off! 
  • Or if you all are Spotify Premium users check out Discord to listen along and chat together. 
• Have a watch party!
  • Using Facebook share your favorite Facebook videos with your friends using Facebook’s watch party. Just jump on to Facebook, go to create a new post, scroll to more options and select “watch party”, if you’re a creative yourself you can share recent videos you may have made!
  • Using Netflix head to Netflix’s Chrome browser plugin. You can find that here. Follow the instructions to create your own watch party!
• Have video chat coffee with your bestie. Schedule your date and time, grab your drink, cozy up with your favorite comfort items and call your friend! I love FaceTime and Google Hangouts but you can also use Skype or whatever video/phone app you like!
• Call your family members. I don’t know about you but I know my grandma waits patiently by the phone often for her grandchildren to call her. 
• Go for a walk/hike outside staying 6 feet apart. If you have kids and they are young enough to not understand 6 feet a part grab a rope, string ribbon and color or knot part of it so they can hold on to each end knowing this is 6 feet. If you have sunshine it’s one of the many simple ways to boost your immune system. Wear sunscreen or sun covering if you need it, I find I have about a 30 minute window before I burn even in the winter. My favorite sunscreen is Sunbum!

Surviving Home Isolation Stuck Inside During the Coronavirus

Stay home may sound like the worst curse anyone has ever put on you, but maybe you’re a home body too and you’re dancing an inner dance because you can wear those yoga pants 24/7! Wherever you land here are some of my best tips for having to work from home and have kids home too. I’ve been a working from home mom for 5 years now and working from home for over a decade now and here’s how I’ve stayed sane.

1. Make your bed and get dressed every day. I don’t know about you but rolling out of bed, not brushing my hair or teeth just makes me feel bleh. Getting ready and making my bed just help me feel like life is a little less chaotic. 
2. Make a routine for yourself. Take time to do exercise, play with your kids, hang with your partner, practice something calming, check out our meditation if you’d like a place to start! Get as detailed as you like. If you have little ones at home while you’re working, breaking up the day into 30 minutes can be helpful as that may be how long they last on one activity before moving on to the next. If you can set up your work tasks to be done in 20 minutes or less so you can have time to help them transition to a different activity. 
3. If you prepped meals before isolation keep doing that if you can. I know when I don’t have meals prepared we end up eating weird meals that are questionable as meals or less healthy food. 
4. Turn on some calm meditative music to help break up the static. Music can be so helpful for our moods. I personally love Spotify and Pandora both of which have free options if you don’t have their services already.
5. Roll with the punches. These are hard times. I don’t know about you but when I’m stressed out and overwhelmed my kiddo is a hot mess too. She picks up on all the emotions, so sometimes just stopping to do something silly a tickle fight or watch a silly cat meme can help our grumpy moods.

Kids Homeschooling

Try to stick to their routine if their teacher sent you home with one. If you’re trying to work too, schedule your tasks the night before based on their routine where they are doing work by themselves. 

Schedule some video calls with their friends, get creative on how they can play together. 

Make a space for their schooling. Set out an area where they will do school work. As nice as it is to do school work from bed or on the living room floor adding some structure to it can help their focus. If you have work from a desk space make a little room next to you so they can work next to you too. My little girl absolutely loves this. It is hard to be this close sometimes, but taking breaks often helps. My daughter loves to be near me even if we aren’t doing the same thing or talking.

Creative Fun Inside

You’ll never believe this but my husband who has been hesitant to do A LOT of crazy things with me said yes to trying acro yoga poses! They were WAY harder than we expected but so fun to learn to do new things together! 

I know many of us are stuck inside or unable to adventure as much as we’d like but I’d love to share with you some of my top 10 best ideas to have fun while stuck at home! If you have any brilliant ideas leave them below for everyone to enjoy too. 

1- Have a dance party! Turn out the lights, grab a headlamp (I know you got those), flash light, disco ball, maybe light some candles safely, crank up the tunes (or as respectfully loud as you can with your neighbors in mind) and dance your hearts out! –need a playlist, email me and I’ll send you ours!

2- Have a sumo wrestling contest! Slip into some oversized t-shirts and baggy pants. Stuff yourself with pillows or whatever padding you can find, hop on the top of your bed or move furniture around to place your largest mattress on the living room floor, and attack! (have a safe word to stop, keep it playful, no hair pulling or sensitive spot shots….maybe set some of your own ground rules before you begin. 😉 )

3- Go Camping inside! Or in your backyard! Pull out your camping gear and pretend you’re camping! Get as creative as you’d like with this. Our little girl absolutely loves when we pretend “camp”

4- Build a fort, turn out the lights, string up christmas lights if you have them or pull out candles or flash lights and tell stories or reminisce about your favorite life stories together.

5- Have A Cooking Contest together to see who can come up with the best treats/snacks with 5 ingredients or less within 30 minutes (or whatever numbers you want!)

6- Build an obstacle course using tape, chairs, pillows, string whatever you have. While cardboard is a fun resource it also contains a lot of contaminants from traveling too so make sure to air it out in the sun for a day if you can before using it or wait 9-10 days to let all the germs die off. (You can research the length at which virus stay on surfaces if you have specific concerns)

7- Take up a new hobby or learn something together. Join my husband and I as we practice some easy acro yoga poses. I recommend watching some tutorials first and doing a warm up yoga flow before you begin. Alternatively, learn to speak another language or pick up one of those musical instruments collecting dust in your attic!

8- Sit down for some old fashioned storytime together. Or make up stories! Some of my favorite activities in creative writing classes was to have one person write a sentence then pass it along and see what story you come up with. Alternatively, you could turn this into a few parts: make a craft painting rocks or coloring on paper with characters, themes, plot twists, setting and resolution ideas then mix and match to tell different stories!

9- Take on a new craft. I have a pinterest board full of ideas for you if you want to go check them out here on my Pinterest Board!

10- Make 2021 the year of epic travel plans. Snag up deals while you can for 2021 and don’t forget to buy your travel insurance because as we’re learning life happens, to everyone. Check out my blog post on my favorite places around the us!

Send your partner this list if you want to try any this week! Share your adventure on social media tagging Celebrate Again so I can cheer you on!

Want more ways to stay connected as a couple check out my 30 day relationship challenge guide!

Supporting Small Businesses During The Coronavirus

Have you ever wondered how small businesses will survive this season? Maybe you too are wondering how your family is going to survive this season. Well, what if we all step up to support each other? No matter your situation these are simple ways you can support a small business you love.

• Find a few small business you love, actually comment on their social media posts, tag some friends who may love their services or products too, and or share their posts on your stories.
• If you can buy online from local artisans who may not be able to attend fairs or markets. 
• Write a google or facebook review for your favorite photographer, videographer or small business owner. (If you’ve worked with me you can leave a review here)
• Buy a gift certificate for a friend in need right now. I don’t know about you but I know a lot of people who have lost their jobs. If you’re able to get them a gift certificate to a small business and or a gift certificate experience they’ll love to do in 2021. We’re so excited about the Celebrate Again experience we hope you’ll consider it too!
• Write a google or yelp review for your favorite local restaurant that may be closed right now. Share photos of your past orders there! Bonus if they are still able and you are able to, order take out one night this week!
• If you have a small business you absolutely love writing them a quick email just saying you appreciate them and value the work they do even if you aren’t able to invest in the products or services right now.

Support Each Other During the Coronavirus

First, share your needs with family and friends. While we may not be able to cook for each other right now, someone could send you a grocery store gift certificate, pay for a delivery service to send you groceries or depending on your local restrictions go shopping for you. 

Post on social media ways you’re able to help others. Being an ear to listen to, praying for people, offering your resources, sharing your expertise, etc. This isn’t the time to think of self survival but how your beautiful talents and gifting can help each other. 

I truly hope you feel at ease just reading this post and have some great tools and resources to move forward in this very precarious season of life. My dream is to look back and see how beautiful humanity was in coming together when life got hard for everyone.

Love you friends, if you need any encouragement, want more meditations, yoga practices or need to see more beautiful places you cannot travel to, hit me up. These are my gifts and I want to saturate your lives with them when you want and need them.