Lockdown brings us face to face with our own minds

Photo above - My daughter isn’t the only one looking herself in the eye as the whole world self isolates.

Sinéad O'Loughlin

With the majority of usual distractions from my inner dialogue of crap no longer available to me, I believe I have met my shadow.

Whereas normally I might avert potential uneasiness or negativity with the busy-ness of outings with my daughters, meet-ups with friends, work if I have it, trips to see my family, or other activities, I now frequently find myself face to face with my own mind.

On those occasions when I do actually get to walk through the front door with some legitimate purpose, there’s little or no engagement with anyone or anything else. From Mullingar town to the M50, to St Peter’s Square, it’s more of the same: nothing and no one. It’s like the world on Christmas Day only it’s deader and going on for longer – nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

If Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh or the Lord Himself were to prescribe the perfect pill to make huge sections of the world’s population face up to our own bull, Covid-19 might be it.

We’ve gone from social distancing to living like contemplative nuns or monks. It’s like an enforced retreat.

What will I do tomorrow? Oh I’ll just stay home and prepare food about four times, clean up after it about four times and keep busying the children and tidying up whatever mess they make over and over and then go to bed feeling that I didn’t get anything much done – in other words, the same as today, yesterday, the day before, the day before that, and so on.

In what is a throwback to my secondary school days, social life consists of going for a walk – except now it’s alone.

One might be forgiven for doing like Robinson Crusoe and carving a notch on the arm of the couch for each passing day.

But, with two daughters and a husband alongside me in my isolation capsule, I’m one of the lucky ones and I know it.

And, warts and all, I’m glad of this extra time with my daughters while they’re still young enough to want me around.

As a mother who instinctively took the ‘attachment parenting’ approach, I had recently been missing those early years when we were entirely devoted to one another. Now, thanks to the lockdown, I’m getting some bonus time.

I remember when my daughters were babies and toddlers, the most common advice I got from parents who were out the other side was to “enjoy them”. I start each day with this in mind and I am doing so. Of course, it’s easier to now that they sleep through the night, use a bathroom, eat foods from somewhere other than my body, and communicate mostly in words rather than cries.

Setting the intention of enjoying them each morning gives purpose to my day and minimizes the aforementioned shadow side time.

Also in a spirit of taking the positive from our current situation, I’ve restarted a couch to 5k programme and discovered in Mullingar Town Park (less than 2km from my home) that maybe there actually is somewhere to hide and somewhere to run after all.

I think Buddha would be proud. (If he did pride, which he surely didn’t.)