Maria Gavriel, business coach, author, and blogger, recently joined us on Lenard Team Connections. We spoke about ways to bring mindfulness into our everyday routines, whether we are working from home, adjusting to being at home with family, or working the front lines.
Keep reading to learn more, or watch the entire conversation here.
How can people who are home, unsure of how to handle their free time, best take care of their emotions?
Maria Gavriel: I love this question honestly, because I think not many people are actually asking this question. A lot of people are being caught in this wave of emotion which is alive, it's there. It's palpable, right?
What do you do? What do you do during times like this for yourself, for your loved ones, and then for the collective - like you are for your community?
The most important thing is to be with whatever is showing up for you. Every day, from day to day, from moment to moment that could be different. And it could also show up differently for each family member. So give yourself full permission to feel whatever it is that you're feeling and to be with that, because number one, the only way out is through. You have to get through that feeling and come out on the other side.
What do you suggest for someone who understands this, but whose family member does not understand the practice you are talking about?
Everyone's going to be wherever they're at with this.
And that's the key: permission and allowing everyone to just go through it wherever they're at. Everyone’s having a different perspective about why this is happening, how this is happening, how to deal with it.
So you know, just really allowing everyone to feel what it is and not having judgment or writing or wronging someone. Permission is probably the biggest key here, and allowing, and being with your feelings.
On the other end of things, we have medical professionals and essential businesses that are open with people working overtime. How do you suggest they make time for mindfulness throughout the day?
So you see two opposite ends of this spectrum, right? There are people that are like, oh my gosh, I have all the time in the world to read my books and do all the things that I always wanted to do. That's a great opportunity to see it that way. See it as you have time, abundance, freedom to do all that you've ever wanted, maybe even focus on your side hustle, maybe start meditating and bringing in new practices, maybe even creating rituals with your family.
Then at the same time, on the other side of that is the reality that people are experiencing overwhelm. Whether that's because they’re on the frontline or even at home. There are families that are overwhelmed at home, because everyone is home and they're just not sure how to manage this whole new way of life. This sudden change of everything.
When you are feeling that overwhelm - and this doesn't happen only during a moment of crisis, or if you're at the frontline - I think this is important to think about, from day to day, when we do go back to whatever that new normal is.
I think it's important to number one, to not bring the work at home. So right now for people at the front lines that have essential businesses. It's important to leave it at the door, and maybe take a pause. Maybe be in the driveway, or before you go in and take a moment and think about what it is that you're grateful for.
If you feel like you can't shake it off, and you had a tough day, which I'm sure a lot of people are out there having experiences we can't even imagine. How do you not bring that into your family and in your home? Reach out to another person, ask someone to help you and support you, for you to lean on and then you receive from them to fill your cup. Then you can walk through your door and be able to give some more because your family is going to ask you to give as well.
Taking that moment, practicing gratitude and maybe reaching out for help and switching it up from giving, giving, giving to receiving mode, and then going in and sharing.
The other step is communicating with your family. Keeping it real and saying had a tough day today. Don't go in and pretend everything's hunky-dory, because that's just not real and people, especially your kids, are gonna sniff it from a mile away.
What about the people are getting used to working from home with their spouses and children or as you said, coming home from possibly a stressful situation. How can families practice mindfulness together?
How do we now reconnect, right? Maybe you have to leave the work in your home office or outside of the door. Communication, bonding: this is a time to really upgrade that skill, really bring it into the home and into the family. And not just in the family. I think also to the community, just like you guys are.
Communicating and saying, hey, how was your day today? Maybe your kids have a one-word answer, like “it's fine.” Okay, then, you can share more.
And all the things we don't do much of because we're always running to all the activities, right? All of the to-do's that we were doing before Covid - I know some of my clients even have time for dinner together anymore. So we're now sitting together, we're having meals together. We're talking we're bonding, we're going for walks. So, these are all great things to do to practice mindfulness and connection.
That is one thing that I think will come out of this. Most of us will be okay coming out of this as far as our health goes. I think it's going to reset the bar on what is important to us as families, right?
I think that that's going to be one of the gifts, maybe one of the many gifts we're given. That reset and reflection. And also, I think it may even allow for healing.
I know we're having a lot of conversations at home about things like during the walk, things came up and we shared some things that maybe the other didn't want to hear. But hey, it came out. It's an upheaval of in many ways, so allow it to be that and it may have a very thick silver lining more than we may expect.
So we've talked about all the people that are in together. Do you have any advice specifically for some of the people that are in this and they're in their houses alone?
There's so many things that you can do for yourself again. Think of morning rituals that you would want to create, think of all the things that you would like. You know, I was joking around with a client the other day and I was saying people pay big money to go to retreats and isolate themselves from everything, or they go on quests that cost a lot. You could do that for free now.
You could have that self-reflection, read your books, drink your tea, and do your meditations. All the things that you wanted to do you can do right now, and you can still go outside. Go get some natural vitamin D. So there's plenty of things that you can do to honor yourself.
