Isolating , Working From Home And Negative Thought Patterns
Today I would like to talk about isolation and the negative thought patterns that can occur. There are two main points today, and the first one is that we are obviously being forced into isolation, and the majority of us are being forced into working from home at the moment. This brings many concerns however I’ll discuss two. Firstly, people are not only having to overcome the challenges around the transition to working from home, going from a structured, supervised environment to being in full control of their own environment in the home, but also when all this blows over, they will have to transition back into the workforce again. There are two major changes there.
Now, if we can have some consistency and some routine and habits throughout that whole period, then hopefully those transitions will be a lot easier and they're going to keep us a lot happier and healthier. I suggest you think about what you do in the workplace, and really try to bring all of that home. So, don't change your habits too much. Try and have the same, similar routine and same habits. Things to consider are your desk, are you standing up or are you sitting down? You may have additional stress and anxiety att the moment, if we arent looking after our posture by sitting or standing correctly, the stress will affect our neck and our shoulders, which may create a lot of posture problems. We could have ongoing back problems, we could have all sorts of problems from not actually taking care of ourselves at home.
Unfortunately, employers are not gonna be able to do this at the moment. We're isolating so they can't come and do, you know, workplace assessments at home. So you've gotta take responsibility for your own health right now, throughout this whole transitional period. So, negative thought patterns. So, recently I had to isolate for seven days because I had the coronavirus symptoms, and I just thought I'm just gonna isolate for seven days. And it think it was day two when I was sat there, and for whatever reason, I can't remember, but I went through a really negative thought pattern. I started to feel sorry for myself.
We're told by psychologists that when we are faced with adversity, the inner child comes out, the adolescent comes out in us. We either become the victim, the persecutor, or we become the rescuer. Now, this particular time, I became the victim. It was, "Ah, poor me. "I'm sat here on my own, and everyone's being irresponsible." And then I started blaming people, I started to become that guy on the zombie movie or "Walking Dead." You know, when you're watching it and you can clearly see how selfish they're being. But when you're in it, it's so hard to actually, recognise that. It took me a good 10 or 15 minutes to recognise this, luckily I've been through it before, so I recognised what was happening.
I can now share with you how I go about switching the negative thoughts off and removing myself from the pattern. I may not be able to help you prevent this, but I can certainly help you come out of it. So, if that does happen to you, firstly, don't worry, you're not alone. We're all going to go through this. The first thing I find that's good for me is to stand up. I remove myself from whatever situation I'm in. And what I did in this particular case is I went outside. because there are a few disconnections that we have when we start to become, like, depressed, if you wanna call it, or just having a negative thought pattern. Typically, it's because we don't have certain connections in life. A connection to nature is one, so I went outside, and I could see the trees, I could see the hills, and I got some fresh air and I got some sunlight on me. Most important is the connections to another people who I felt could relate to my story so I wouldn't feel alone. So I instantly called someone who I knew would have empathy, who would probably understand what I was going through, and we'd share and laugh and have a good giggle about it without me feeling silly, but feeling good, you know? So, it's turning those negative thought patterns into positive thought patterns. And feeling that you can relate with someone, that's so important.
We must try to keep a level of consistency, I think the key thing for me, is don't forget that if you're working in the office, you have got to commute to the office. So, you're getting out and about, you're getting outside, you're feeling the cold air on your face. You still need to do that and if you can exercise, exercise. If you're in an office environment or working environment around other people, I can guarantee you're having a minimum, absolute minimum, of a hundred human connections per day. Now you're at home, isolating, you need to try and have as many of those connections as you can. So FaceTime people, Zoom link.
I started my day today in a Zoom room, virtual room, with about 12 different people, some I'd met, some I hadn't met, and it was really lovely. There was no set agenda, it was just, "How's your day? "Let's just talk about stuff "that's going on around us." And it was only a half-an-hour call and I felt like I had a really good start to my day. So if you can do those sorts of things, do them. So, just to reiterate, try and have that level of consistency, try and keep your habits. But then, also, don't worry about those negative thought patterns too much. You can help yourself get out of it, but make sure that you have those connections with nature. Try and exercise, make sure you drink lots of water, make sure you connect with people in whatever way you can. Okay? So hope that helps. You're not alone, just remember that. We're all going through this together. And if we keep helping each other out, we can certainly get through this, no problems. Tomorrow's video will be about society that's changing, obviously, and how our mindsets are already starting to change. And the positives around that. So I look forward to sharing that with you tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
Catch you soon. All the best. Have a great day!
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