It’s the start of a new year and many of the sentiments around are a sigh of relief 2020 has passed, with hope and expectations for 2021.  However, with the announcement of the new restrictive lockdown that sense of hope and enthusiasm is rapidly evaporating.  There is a sense of Groundhog Day as we juggle between work and home life and the added challenges of remote working.   Weaving a daily self-check into your day can be an effective tool for managing rising anxiety.

Stepping back is Self-Care

Secondly stepping back provides an opportunity to practice self-care. Our day can become intense with different competing demands.  Consciously stepping back to observe our in the moment experience is mindfulness or simple non-judgemental awareness.  It encourages you to take a break from the doing mode, to observe what is going on, and recharge.  Practicing self-kindness creates awareness of the whole gambit of the human experience, that is our emotional, physical, and mental state.  It may be simply acknowledging I am okay, I am well, and practicing gratitude.  Or it might be noticing anxiousness in your body,  how does anxiousness feel?  Can you be with this sensation? By cultivating a practice of checking in with yourself, you learn to respond to what is happening, rather than default to a reactive response such as rushing, procrastination, or avoiding.  You learn to be fully present with your experience and respond wisely to the unfolding experience.

Change is Constant

Stepping back provides many benefits, it reminds us to pause, to connect with ourselves.    Life’s experiences are fleeting and constantly evolving.  Our thoughts are constantly changing, but sometimes we can get stuck in a spiralling series of negative thoughts.    Mindfulness helps you to notice when this is happening.  The pandemic will pass, we will have freedom again and perhaps from a work perspective, choices about how and where we work.

Mindfulness is a great tool to use to help you step back, but also to introduce it to colleagues.  Starting team meetings with a short practice encourages everyone to take a breather from a work schedule that often consists of back-to-back meetings particularly in the virtual working environment.

Free Short Mindful Breathing Practice

Acknowledging that each year, will bring happiness, sadness, joy, sorry, we will succeed in some endeavours and fail in others.  Perhaps as we step into 2021, being open to whatever 2021 brings?  This is not setting aside your goals but understanding as life happens there are so many uncontrolled variants that will distract you but when managed wisely you can fully embrace the messiness of life.

To help step back, click to access a free short mindful breath practice.

In the meantime, if you are interested in learning how you can integrate mindfulness-based interventions into your business click to register your interest in the upcoming Mindfulness in Business Series.