Four tips for tough times

Hello dear friends,

Firstly, huge thanks to those of you who messaged me when I didn’t write last Sunday - it was so heartwarming to learn how my Wonderstruck musings have become a part of your Sunday mornings and that you missed hearing from me. And huge thanks also for your very kind thoughts and prayers for my dad.

In case you didn’t read my last Wonderstruck, my dad collapsed a couple of weeks ago and has been seriously ill in hospital ever since.

Last week I just didn’t have the capacity to write this letter but this week there is something I’d like to share with you, in case any of you are currently going through a difficult time too, and that is the four things I’ve been doing to stay (relatively) calm and positive these past couple of weeks.

This is not my first rodeo when it comes to having a seriously ill loved one so when my dad was taken ill I had a couple of automatic responses which have proved to be invaluable. The first being to…

Slow down

When a crisis happens our nervous systems tend to go into overdrive and it’s all too easy to find yourself tearing around, trying to attend to everything and fix everything, all while worrying about everything, and at a hundred miles an hour. But I know from painful experience that this way burnout and more potential disasters lie. So, when my dad was taken ill, I deliberately did the opposite. I started taking things slower. I refused to run for trains or buses after a stint at the hospital, even if it meant waiting for ages for the next bus or train in the cold. I loaded my phone with positive and engrossing podcasts for just such occasions and I adopted a slow steady stroll. I doubled down on my daily meditation practise. I ate healthily and mindfully instead of wolfing down any old crap. It felt so good to slip into a slower way of being. It made me feel like there was at least something I could control.

The second thing I instantly knew to do was to…

Shrink down

And by that I mean shrinking my world and my responsibilities to something that felt manageable and didn’t add to my stress. I gave up a cat-sitting gig and a couple of pre-Christmas travel plans, and emergency booked an Airbnb for a month - a lovely little studio in a place I used to live and know well, and somewhere within reaching distance of the hospital. I’ve cancelled plans with friends and I’ve also put all but my most essential work projects on hold. Before my dad got ill I’d been juggling three quite large projects, now I only have the most important and pressing one to focus on - a book that’s due to my publisher soon. My credit card and income for the next few months have taken a battering as a consequence, but some things are way more important. In times of crisis a simple small life frees up the energy and space for the emotional big stuff.

The third thing that has been saving my sanity these past couple of weeks is to…

Share love

I wrote about this in more detail in my last letter, where I shared some lovely glimmers of connection I’d experienced in the hospital. Since then I’ve been actively seeking out opportunities to be kind - mainly with strangers I’ve encountered en route to or in the hospital, and of course with my dad and family. I’ve also made it a practise to be loving to myself in simple practical ways, like booking an Airbnb with a bath and buying a sack of bergamot and lavender bath salts to soak in (taking a bath is one of my favourite ways to relax and replenish and most of the places I’ve stayed in these past 15 months I’ve been travelling have only had showers, so trust me, this is a real treat!)

And the final, and most difficult thing I’ve been doing to get through this tough time is to…

Let go

This is the hardest of my 4 tips but also the most powerful. When a loved one is very sick every fibre in our body wants to cling on, and try and control the outcome. But there are some things we just can’t control however much we might want to. Fighting against these things wastes so much energy and only makes matters worse. I was reminded of something my daughter-in-law’s father said to me, during a night-time air attack we experienced this summer in Lviv. ‘First we pray, then we go back to sleep.’ Pray and let go, let go and pray, has become the rhythm to my days. It’s helped massively that this has been my dad’s ethos too. Witnessing the zen-like way in which he’s dealing with his condition and serious discomfort has been so inspiring.

I’ll round things up on a final positive note…

I’m staying in an Airbnb in a place called Hove, right next to Brighton on the English coast. I lived here for 18 months between 2019 and 2021 and as you might have guessed from those fateful dates, I didn’t have the best time here. First I went through a break-up, then the pandemic hit. When I moved away in 2021 I felt no real desire to return to Hove as I saw it as a place full of sad memories.

Returning here a couple of weeks ago has been a revelation. I frickin’ love it! And now when I walk around and relive the memories of my former relationship, I’m reminded of nothing but good times and all I do is grin and give thanks for them.

The other day I had to use the launderette right across the street from my old apartment. As I sat listening to my clothes tumbling around in the dryer I gazed across at my old bedroom window and thought back to the endless months I spent in that room during the lockdowns and again, all I could remember were the good times I had with my son in that apartment and I felt so grateful for the memories.

launderette life and lockdown apartment

Time has done its thing and healed me and I’m so grateful for the reminder that this is what time does and that painful times always come to an end. Always.

Sending lots of love to you,

Siobhan