Isolation

A loving message from our first We Are Hairy People model, mental wellness ambassador, talented artist and loving friend, Zoey.

So this morning I have decided to drag myself out of bed and sit on a chair outside with a cup of tea to write. I thought I would try and share some of my isolation thoughts incase anyone feels the same way or is feeling lonely during this time. My boyfriend will tell you that one of my favourite things in the world are sitting outside in the morning sun. There is something about it that is good for the soul. My heart does break for people who cant be doing this right now and I feel oddly privileged to have something that used to be so ordinarily normal as a garden.

I am not sure if anyone else is finding this right now but I have a complete loss of time of day, what day it is and what is really going on. I can find myself busy in a task or a job and sort of forget about the scary world outside but then it hits hard and my brain melts.

Despite not being able to attend shoots and help with painting – Sarah and the girls at We Are Hairy People will always have such a special place in my heart.  For me it has always been a community of love and acceptance for those of us who are struggling with who we are. This message is for you guys and anyone else who is feeling lost (like me) through this time. 

I am hoping isolation will teach me some sort of ability to enjoy my own company and be okay with spending time on my own. I am hoping to be able to continue gaining routine and structure with coming out of this the other side. I have recently seen that there are three stages of self-isolation and this is what I want to chat to everyone about today;

Now survival is all about just getting through the day. It for me carries around a lot of worry and a lot of anger. I feel like in the mornings I can find myself in this stage like a lot of people sort of waking up forgetting its happened and then having to deal with the remembering from scratch. My big piece of advice of dealing with this stage is to really monitor what news you listen too and how much you watch of it. For me I watch an hour in the morning and then try to just watch the briefing in the afternoon. Too much of the news has the ability of consume us in a negative way.  

I found a big part of this on my birthday last weekend. Not seeing friends and family was hard but I found a big comfort in using technology to see everyone online. It is obviously never the same but makes it feel more real that they are really there. I think my other advice which was given to me by a friend is write a gratitude diary. This helps with obviously being thankful but learning to accept we cant control everything.

Now, I don’t necessarily feel in this stage yet but still wanted to share with you some thoughts I had on this and how I think I want to achieve this. Classically as a goal setter list writer freak I wanted to make sure I hadn’t seen this time as a waste. But now I am realising it is not about it being a waste and I don’t have to become a super hero queen over night. I think everyone is going to come out of this with growth of some sort. If you have spent this whole period on your own, hopefully the growth could be managing to spend time with yourself and enjoying your own company. For me, I hope my growth will be managing anxiety, being patient and appreciating more of what I have.

Hope everyone is managing to keep safe and keep talking to each other

 Big love 

Zo x