Breaking the Lockdown Blues

“I’m a mindfulness coach, I’m not supposed to feel miserable! Why the hell am I so low?”
These were the words uttered by my brain this morning, as I woke up and laid there, thinking. That was rubbish so I avoided the thought with a solid 45 minutes of phone time, until… 

Here's a video of this blog if you can't be arsed to read it. You're welcome. 

Clap! (this is actually a tool I teach!)
“I’m better than this shit!”
I got up and made my bed and decided to go outside. I remembered some  of my sources of inspiration that cheer me up:

• Nature, trees, birds and the like
• Running (bare chested - thanks Wim Hoff)
• Being an idiot and dancing to music as I run 
• Saying hello to EVERY SINGLE PERSON I see this morning (this really helps me!)
• Home, tea, meditation, stretching
• Cold shower screaming!
• Writing

Break the lockdown - give myself permission to  EXPRESS MYSELF. 
This I remembered is the main reason I feel crap sometimes. I am creating my own personal lockdown, because I judge myself.  I compare myself to some imagined standard of how I should be. It’s not safe to be myself, to express myself - my brain won't allow it.

Bullshit!
It's not true that it's not safe. If the STOP technique (another tool I teach in collaboration with Mark Dunn) has taught me anything it is that the brain talks a lot of shit. But we can’t just tell ourselves that. The self judgement keeps us locked in to a spiral of shitty habits. So what can we do? 

Give yourself permission - allow! 
Think about it. If judgement, resistance and comparison is at the root of our suffering and the perpetuation of our stuckness then stop fighting it and allow it - just for 10 minutes even! You can then short circuit your lockdown blues. For example:

1. “I shouldn’t feel like this”
2. “I shouldn’t be judging - oh god now I’m judging myself!”
3. “I shouldn’t be judging that either, what an idiot!”
4. “I should stop judging now, oh no!”
5. “I’m judging that I’m judging that I’m judging that I feel like this!!”
6. “OK, fuck this… let’s go outside”
7. Oh, I feel better now. Hmmm.... 

I’ve found emotions don’t last long if I give them permission to be here. If I EXPRESS THEM without harming anyone else. Personally I like to play with them, play the fool.  This is a result of my clowning and fooling work with people like Holly Stoppit and Jamie Catto, but also my intuition. When we play we are giving ourselves permission to live life as ourselves, without the 'personal lockdown'.

So if you want to break the personal lockdown blues can you play with them? How can you express your blues today? (or whatever else you have inside)

If you want some help with this let me know. I'm offering some reduced price sessions for people in the lockdown struggling with money - check out my Coaching page or email me: neil@positively-mindful.com for a callback chat
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