Be Kind to your household … (even when everyone is trying your patience and you are tearing your hair out!)

be kind

This is the second instalment of three blog posts on Kindness. The first was Be kind to yourself, this one is focusing on being kind to those in your household and the last one will cover being kind to strangers.

Week 5 of lockdown! How is everyone doing? In my house there are only two people and while I feel very lucky that I am in self isolation with another human, one who is chilled out and very easy going, at times I still find myself getting irritated by silly things he does.

After nearly 5 weeks I think it is pretty natural to feel like this sometimes. We normally have other people we can see and let off steam to. Maybe you are in a house with lots of people of different ages all going through different things. Maybe you are trying to work from home and also home school. I imagine you are trying your best but in this situation it is natural that everyone is getting under each others feet at some points. Or maybe you are beyond that and already tearing your hair out!

Covid-19 has increased feelings of anxiety, boredom and frustration on a global scale. Normally if one person in a household is suffering from anxiety or depression that can be difficult on other family members. They may feel they have to try to manage that person’s feelings, when that person maybe doesn’t have a lot of emotional energy to manage their own. Now however EVERYONE has increased anxiety and a lot of us are not in a good mental place. That can become a recipe for disaster; increased arguments, resentment, increased feelings of hopelessness.

So what can we do to help this situation?

If possible find a space that is just yours, if you share a room maybe allocate certain times of the day for people to be able to use it to be alone. One of my clients has created a little hideaway in their shed, just to have some solitary head space and a change of environment from the house.

Start a self-care routine – schedule regular exercise, take time to do things you enjoy, e.g. painting/ baking etc. As part of this self-care routine it can be very beneficial to start using relaxation techniques to help with anxiety – apps like Calm or Headspace can help manage overwhelming feelings. In the blog post ‘10 Benefits of Meditation That You Might Not Know About’ Hannah Braime describes how regular meditation improves feelings of self-acceptance & self-confidence. This fosters a feeling of ‘wholeness’ and improves our relationships with others. She explains that when we are more relaxed and grounded we are able to be our best selves with other people.

If you find yourself getting overly irritable with someone in your house, take a few minutes to reflect. Don’t be to hard on yourself for getting easily frustrated but also don’t let things fester for too long. It can be helpful to go back to that person, apologise and explain how your feeling.

Try to be more compassionate: if you are becoming more easily irritated the chance are that others in your household could be as well. Being aware of this can be helpful as it could stop a situation exploding if one party can remain calmer and talk things out instead of getting overly defensive.

We are all trying our best to get through this, if you are running a household and everyone is fed, watered and survives each day you are doing an amazing job.

When you feel down or irritated, when things go wrong, you should practice kindness because that’s the only thing that can hardly go wrong.

If you feel you are struggling with your mental health at this time feel free to contact me today. My session costs have been reduced while we are in this pandemic, see pricing for details. I am also holding a free Online clinic each Monday click here for details.

You may also like to download my free Deep Relaxation Audio to help with anxiety, stress or sleep issues.

If you enjoyed this blog you can find others like this here.

Stay Safe Everyone x

Useful Links

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-benefits-of-meditation-that-you-might-not-know-about.html.

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/anxiety-and-panic-attacks/self-care-for-anxiety/

https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/

https://www.samaritans.org/