It arrived on our doorsteps out of the blue (kind of) and left us all feeling like we were extras in a zombie film. Well, that’s how it felt to me anyway. What was beyond our consciousness six months ago, became a reality, but first to those people on the other side of the world. Then it crept closer – first geographically, then psychologically, until it was actually here with us, our new reality. Lockdown.
Lockdown has meant different things to different people. It may be no more than a precautionary measure with which you are complying. Or you may have been so affected by it that the whole of life is changed. Perhaps, like me, the experience is more like a board game where you find yourself on different squares, not quite sure what determines where the counter lands, only knowing that this square means a day when you have your act together day but that one could be anything from chaos to fear to inertia.
There are myriad ways to cope in this new world and there is plenty of advice out there: keep a routine; eat well; take exercise; limit screen time; bed early. It’s all good stuff but we know most of it already. And some of us can put it into practice and some of us can’t and some of us can do it for a little while but find ourselves just as soon going off the rails again.
This is what I have learned so far during lockdown: I like to make life difficult. There is no pleasing me. Or rather, there is no pleasing the voice in my head that comments relentlessly on everything I do. I suspect I am not alone in this.
In this quieter, slow-paced life I can see and hear my thoughts more clearly. The over-riding commentary is that I should be making more of this unprecedented windfall of time. If I go at my own pace, waking and rising slowly, getting down to work in my own time, letting the day unfold and slip away as it suits me, the voice in my head says this isn’t good enough. I should be getting more done. If I put work front and centre, then why can’t I just relax?
What strikes me about this is that it is a no-win situation. There’s no appeasing the voice in your head because it does not want to be appeased. It is a compulsion that observes, commentates, weighs, measures and finds wanting … whatever you do. It sets you against yourself and floods the unconscious mind with the message that you are not good enough. And it’s not a lockdown phenomenon either. It’s just that when you turn down the volume on normal life, this voice in your head becomes very loud. How does yours go? Is it something like this?
‘I love living at my own pace. But you should get down to work earlier. I could do that distance course I paid for. You should do your accounts. Late night radio is great. You should be choosing your own music. If only I put my mind to it, I could get through loads more work. You really ought to cook from scratch. I love Netflix. You’d be better off reading a book. I could do the garden. You should do your accounts. I haven’t been for a run for ten days. You have nothing to show for all this time.’
What is the answer to such a push-pull, hard to please, inner soundtrack? Start with becoming aware of it. Most of the time it lives under the radar, hardly detectable, while it drains your life force. Listen out for it and, when you hear it, just observe. Watch it at work but do so from a neutral standpoint. Don’t fight with it – there’s enough fight in there already. Examine the voice dispassionately like a physician examining a patient. What do you find there? What can you learn about how it works?
Do you have a thought, for example ‘this is nice’ and then does the voice react with ‘you should be doing something else’? Is it always poised to snatch away the joy or to undermine the achievement with the thing that remains as yet unachieved? Keep observing its relentless patter. Does it even make sense – why should you choose your own music? Just observe. For all you know the power of your attention may transform it. Above all, don’t give the voice the treatment it gives you. For that will lumber you with not one but two Punch and Judy commentaries. If you have to react, then do so kindly. A benign mental gesture of acknowledgement, acceptance, curiosity or amusement could change the face of it. Now you’re winning!
Eimear McAllister, Barrister.