Coronavirus has made my life into some sort of loop. I feel like I’m trapped in some sort of Star Trek style black hole, repeating the same day over and over and over and over and over…………..

Is this you?

Do you know the feeling? I get up, eat breakfast, get on with work, eat lunch, fix things, have a cup of tea, do some more work, train, eat dinner, watch TV and then go back to bed. Just before my head hits the pillow, I have this strange feeling of deja vu, I know I’ve been here before (like 5 minutes ago) and for a moment my life feels like a constant loop of my head hitting a pillow. Think of the film ‘groundhog day’, where Bill Murray’s world is contained within 24hrs, but speeded up even more until my world is limited to a few seconds, that’s what my life sometimes feels like. Know what I mean?

I can feel strangely more on edge, things can get to me a lot easier than what they used to. It’s horrible and takes real patience to sometimes just take a step back and calm down. It’s silly really, here we are at home, we are safe, have food and shelter (which is more than what many people have) but can’t take solace in this. We need help and I think I have the route out.

It sounds crazy, but I’m sure that some of you reading this can relate to how I’m feeling. Coronavirus has just turned the volume up on this, we spend most of our time at home living in each other’s pockets and people aren’t mean to be caged in this way for long periods. We are meant to travel, to explore and experience new things which feed our minds and souls. It’s no wonder that this pandemic has increased the amount of people suffering with mental health problems.

So what I’m about to recommend is going to be quite obvious, I’ve talked about it before and the results I’ve seen are PROFOUND. Since using this practice in my life I’ve not only been able to calm myself down in stressful situations but I’ve almost been able to reverse the person that I thought I was! The pandemic is hard, no doubt there, but what I practice has been the best remedy to combat the feelings that it makes us feel.

I mean it! Without sounding painful right on, if your willing to put the time in (let’s be honest we’ve ALL got time on our hands now) you too will see the benefits, and quite quickly too if you allow it.

What to do.

Without further ado, the way to NOT to have the same day twice AND use this method to be HAPPIER through the pandemic is…….

Meditation.

Ta da!

Sorry if this answer isn’t as heralded or profound as you might think, but hear me out for the sake of your mental health…

Meditation has been scientifically proven to not only reduce negative impacts in your brain but also REVERSE them.

All you have to do is put the time in.

The benefits to me have been huge and I mean that. It’s hard to put a point on just how much meditation has changed my life without getting emotional! It’s been the catalyst for literally changing who I though I was, and all I had to do was be patient and work at it.

How to be happier.

Explaining how to mediate I’m probably best just telling you how I do it. Coronavirus, isolating and living the same day over and over became very easy to deal with for me because of meditating. At roughly the same time every day I’ll retreat to a quiet room and, just, sit. Sometimes I’ll go into a half lotus position, other times I’ll just sit up. I’ll then close my eyes and find that space where I’m comfortable to be in the moment, and whether I’m there for 5 minutes or 20 doesn’t matter. What matters is that everything is OK, that things come and go, I’ve learned to be OK with my thoughts as they pass because all they are, are thoughts. Pretty quickly my head now empties and I’m left with just the sound of my breathing, there’s nothing, just a contented feeling of ‘now’, it’s this practice that helps me through tough times and can also help you.

Be aware however, that it can take time to ‘cultivate’ the patience for meditation. For me it took a few weeks to be comfortable with the feeling of ‘now’ as my thoughts would be like trains coming and going in my head. Then one day it ‘clicked’ and all of a sudden I started to really enjoy meditating, my ‘thought trains’ stopped running at 100mph and I became way more content.

In conclusion.

For me, being happier is easy, we are ALL actually happy to begin with. Therefore It’s just about ALLOWING yourself to be who you really are and happiness will find you again.

Try this on yourself right now…..

Turn off all distractions.

Sit up in your chair in a comfortable position.

Just sit here for a few minutes or however long you wish.

Slowly, start to focus on your slow and steady breathing.

In and out.

Now pay attention to how you begin to feel.

Do you begin to feel content?

……

It’s this feeling, this feeling of ‘now’ that you’ve been looking for all this time. It’s the path to happiness and inner patience. It can actually lead you back to who you really are and bring about MASSIVE change in your life, I don’t need to tell you how much it will help you through this pandemic and how to deal with the stresses, the anger, fears and pent up negativity.

That’s what it’ll teach you, meditation isn’t the suppression of feelings, it will show you that they are simply a PART of you, they’re trains that are just passing through.