OBSERVATIONS DURING THE PANDEMIC

Tick tock, tick tock goes my little clock buried inside my counselling bag. It ticks away amongst four boxes of men size tissues, colouring pens, paper, modelling clay, tumblers, tangles, stones, a set of Russian Dolls, a large ‘listen to the sea’ shell, aromatherapy calming room spray, a tea towel, Cope Cards, an empty wooden biscuit box and multi coloured Post It notes. If you would like to know how I work with these in Grief, let me know and I will do another blog just on that.

My bag should be with me in the counselling room where I work. It should offer the right tool to use when I have bereaved clients to see and work with. My patiently ticking bag should not remind me every day that I am working from home through Zoom or by telephone and that I cannot use the contents of my bag. Whilst I was listening to its gentle tick-tock- tick-tock-tick-tock, I became soothed by the rhythm and reflected upon some of the changes in the last four months.

In March I wrote about Anchoring Anxiety for the wonderful Marie Curie Talk About website: https://www.mariecurie.org.uk/blog/anchoring-anxiety-with-terminal-illness-during-coronavirus/271210

In it I described a simple technique called: I AM - I HAVE - I CAN. These statements can act as an anchor to ground you especially when feeling anxious.

However, I think it maybe useful to revisit these last four months into the Pandemic, and reflect on the changes. The statements are still the same but I realised I have had to add to them:

I AM changed into I AM and I BECAME

I HAVE changed into I HAVE and I VALUE

I CAN changed into I CAN and I CAN STILL

I am a therapist.

I became a self-isolating therapist

I became a shielding therapist 

I am white; I became so, so much more aware of my white privilege

I became a grandmother of a grandson

I am a sister; I became the oldest sister of a dying brother

I am a niece; became the niece of a favourite uncle who died

I am a friend; I became the married friend to my newly widowed schoolfriend

I am a mother; I am becoming a mother who will know all about dialysis sadly

I am a co-author of a beautifully illustrated book on grief published just before lock-down;

I became a co-author who is learning how to market a book during the Pandemic

I am independent; I became dependent on the wonderful supermarket deliveries and services

I am naturally grateful; I became even more grateful for the kindnesses of neighbours  

I am someone who can shop; I became so grateful to online shops who deliver when I couldn’t go to the shops

I have and value my health

I have and value my garden

I have and value the support I get

I have and value the food on our table

I have and value my loving family and friends

I have and value my wonderfully supportive supervisors

I have and value my clients whose courage never fails to move me

I have and value my supervisees who do sterling work with their clients during Covid-19

I have and value my years of experience on the front line sitting with the dying and the bereaved

I have and value the writing of a book on grief which reflects that experience

I have and value my co-author and illustrator; together we form the solid triangular base of this beautiful book

I have and value my confidence that this book will reach out to all those bereaved who need it

I can still laugh

I can still cry

I can still talk

I can still write

I can still listen

I can still hear

I can still see

I can still be change

I can still be strong

I can still be vulnerable 

I can still work

I can still market our book

I can still hope