A peaceful home is a joy to return to. And when you work-from-home, a clean and content casa is a refreshing place to spend and share the majority of your time, whether connecting with close ones daily, tending to housework, or taking care of business.

If you’re going through what I did when I went from being busy on the road (and on planes) to working mostly from home, you might be getting a little antsy or restless about being in one place for an extended amount of time.

As of today, Saturday, March 28th, 2020, Barbados starts a Government-14-day imposed curfew (until April 14th, 2020.) Everyone’s expected (and warned) to be off the road and tucked safely in their homes between 8pm and 6am, and only essential-service businesses are to be open today.

UPDATE (as of April 2nd, 2020) – only non-essential service businesses will be open during the 2-week curfew unless employees can work exclusively from home, and it’s advised there’s to be limited outdoor movement unless working at or going to one of those businesses. Here’s the online newspaper article as a reference for that info.

For a little island where people love to gather in shops, cafes, and bars and lime on blocks or party ’til dawn, and invite others from all over the map, this is completely new – though it isn’t exclusive to us.

Never in our whole entire lives could we imagine today would look like this.

‘Social distancing,’ ‘working-from-home,’ and ‘lockdowns’ of various degrees are strict steps many countries are taking to try to cope with the Covid-19 crisis the globe is facing and avoid further spread.

No ‘Pep talk’ can soften the blow or lighten the mood of what’s going on worldwide right now. This post is just here to share some encouragement for any rookies in this global stay-at-home season.

Getting Acquainted with Staying Home (when you’re used to going out all the time) can feel awkward at first and for awhile after that, but it brings some helpful lessons for personal development and inspires some questions.

lessons

When you’re mostly at home (for a significant chunk of time), whether you’re an employee, entrepreneur, student, freelance consultant or the director of a big company, you start to recognize your rhythm.

You’ll learn a lot about yourself – things you may have missed amidst all the external distractions.

Are you still setting an alarm to wake up in the morning, or are you getting up intuitively now? If your alarm is still sounding off, how about enjoying some quiet time while the sun is now kissing the land, since you’re not juggling getting breakfast and the children ready before rushing off to work or uni?

In otherwise-noisy and cloudy countries where birdsongs are hardly ever heard and ‘fresh air’ looks like smog, quiet and clean air are new things many people are now getting used to.

Many who constantly looked down into phones are now looking up to appreciate the sky and sunsets.

If you were overworked before this season, now you can pick a healthier rhythm; one that aligns your business with wellness.

We’ve all been given a ‘time-out’ and can use this time to skim through and evaluate our recent habits and make a healthier choice. Where were our weekly ‘liming-spots’ to go to and which ones are healthy?

There’s a lot to be learned in the stillness.

What do 8pm and 3am look like now?

We’re realizing more each day what truly matters, how serious life is, and how fragile we really are and how much hope matters.

questions

• Easily distracted? Maybe you never observed or realized that before, and now that tendency seems to be magnified on a daily basis these days. It’s one thing to be easily distracted and to make the decision to in turn be productive, and another to become frustrated or irritable.

• What does ‘fun’ look like? If we generally think of ourselves as ‘fun’ people, that means we can have or be fun regardless of whatever situation, location or company we’re in. What did fun look or seem like when you were going out all the time, and have you found a fresh perspective on what fun means now that you’re staying home in this season?

But just as a bully within a group of similar minds often tends to be different – closer to who they really are, when taken away from the ‘strength’ and underlying peer-pressure of the group, we’re given this opportunity to honestly evaluate…remember who we are and embrace the higher purpose for our life.

beyond our careers, accolades, personal goals and to-do list

What are your tendencies? Care to share here? No pressure. You’re welcome to; it may encourage someone else reading this post today.

Maybe you’ve discovered you don’t need to be in a crowd to be or feel seen or need to always be doing something fun or flashy publicly to find joy. You might now ‘have the time’ to write that book or re-assess priorities. Are you prone to mingle, now aware you are designed to live set apart? Does your phone now seem like more of a pest than an asset – is it your phone or have you been its human? Inspired to use it differently or less…or better?

What’s your biggest lesson in this season?

By the way, this is the third time I’ve tried publishing this post. I have to keep refreshing, copying, pasting and re-tagging it each time. Just when I thought I was “such a patient person,” here’s another real-time lesson.

Love, compassion, prayers, gratitude and encouragement don’t need to be or stay indoors, and they don’t need a curfew to be put into motion.

To the people in the essential-service industries – thank you.

Stay safe everyone.

Love to you…