Her three children (ages 9, 10, and 18) started remote learning. Her husband, a physician, continued seeing patients at his hospital, but they stopped going out on evenings and weekends. Oquist was running her own management consulting firm, Oquist McFadden Consulting, from her home. Like many, Oquist says her family felt hunkered down and like they’d hit the “pause” button on their lives. She says she started moving her body physically then as a way to practice self-care. “I started walking,” she says. “I’m one of those people who doesn’t like exercising, but I talked myself into doing 10 minutes per day. Then I’d go a little longer, especially on days when I felt frustrated. Pretty soon, I was up to an hour a day, and that helped quite a bit.” Then, George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis. Already a speaker and consultant about diversity and inclusion, Oquist was suddenly in very high demand. But before she could throw herself into those efforts, Oquist knew she had to understand all the feelings she was having about the murder and the extreme responses on both sides. She realized it was going to take more than walking. “As a Black woman, I didn’t realize how much anxiety and fear I had around the color of my skin,” she says. It brought up memories of having to be kept safe as the only Black person on her high school basketball team when they played in a city that was then the KKK national headquarters. That’s when she found a therapist specializing in trauma, particularly related to systemic and historical racism. “Talking about these issues, which felt so embedded in my experience, has been really helpful,” she says. “I’m grateful that I took that step, to acknowledge that I couldn’t work through these feelings on my own.” RELATED: How to Start a Self-Care Routine Then the pandemic just kept going and going and going. “There’s been a noticeable evolution of self-care routines” says Alyza Berman, the founder and clinical director of the Berman Center, a mental health treatment center in Atlanta. “At first, the lockdowns and quarantines seemed an opportune time to pick up a new hobby, restart a workout routine, or implement healthier lifestyle choices. But then our concept of time and expectations started to change, sometimes quite drastically.” Major events during the year — COVID-19 illness, loss of loved ones, loss of employment, civil unrest, political conflict, and record-setting wildfires — caused many to take a big step back and reevaluate what’s really important, Berman says. “This pause in normal daily life is one that’s rare, and something we’ll never see again, so we’ve gained a unique self-awareness and ability to understand the importance of self-care in our lives,” she says. RELATED: How to Practice Self-Care During the Coronavirus Pandemic For Oquist, it meant boosting her efforts to help others, including coaching her son’s fifth grade basketball team, and taking more time for prayer and meditation. She cut way back on social media and no longer reads the comments on local news stories (like the ones on stories about George Floyd that she says made her physically sick) — and that’s all brought a feeling of rising above the chaos and anxiety. “The pandemic made me get really simple and focused,” says Oquist. “I’m much more aware now of what serves me and what doesn’t, and I’m grateful for that. I think I’m coming out of this different from how I went in, with more grace toward myself.” At the start of the pandemic, Fekken spent time stocking up on nonperishable goods, following the news to understand what was happening, and learning how to order more items online. She cut back on her hours at the gas station, but as other employees left to take care of their now-homeschooled children or elderly parents, she was asked to pick up more shifts and gradually began working more. In the beginning, self-care was a way to balance out her anxieties about the looming situation and her personal exposure to customers at work several times per week. RELATED: How to Handle Anxiety in the Time of COVID-19 An avid scrapbooker, she leaned into making cards with her friends — they met in their church’s basement, where they could sit far apart. She embraced a feeling of normalcy by regularly babysitting her four young grandchildren. They played dress-up, did craft projects, and masked up for short excursions to the local craft store. As a “pandemic present,” her daughter bought her a she-shed that was unfinished, and she spent hours thinking of ways to decorate it, feeling a thrill of purpose in creating her own little retreat space. Although she says she was taking precautions against the virus (like social distancing and wearing a mask), Fekken admits she had doubts that it was real, or as bad as the news made it seem. Then she and her husband got COVID-19. “I didn’t have to go to the hospital, but there were days where I wondered if this was the beginning of the end for me,” she says. “I’ve never experienced sickness like that before. I’m a pretty optimistic, upbeat person, but COVID made me feel hopeless because it truly shut me down.” For three weeks, the normally hurricane-level-busy Fekken struggled to walk from the bedroom to the porch for fresh air — a distance of about 20 feet. She lost her smell and taste, suffered from fever spikes that left her soaked, and watched TV with her eyes closed because of ocular headaches. Every day, she focused on deep-breathing exercises suggested by her daughter, a paramedic, but even that was exhausting. Self-care meant simply surviving until the next day. “We know people who have died of this, including three people who were in my high school graduating class, and once we started to feel better, I felt changed,” she recalls. “I had a huge sense of gratitude and a new respect for the virus. I started to appreciate everyday things I used to take for granted, like walking down the driveway to get the mail, or being able to smell what I’m cooking.” Although Fekken’s sense of smell has returned, she still can’t fully taste her food, even six months after recovery. Her self-care now is more modest than it was at the beginning of the pandemic, she says, but also more meaningful. She’s not focusing on distracting herself during a lockdown, but rather on recognizing the seemingly small moments and tasks she once did without thinking. Making cards for people from her church who are homebound, playing online games with those who are lonely, and talking to her friends more often all factor into her self-care now. “I’d like to think I’ve always appreciated my life, but getting COVID-19 made that take on a new meaning,” she says. “Everything I do feels like a gift.”
From Staying Busy to Staying Present
When the pandemic began, the Scottsdale, Arizona–based personal trainer Ramsey Bergeron found himself with a whole lot more free time when his gym closed down as part of the state’s stay-at-home orders. The 42-year-old took advantage of the opportunity, seeing hiking and reading as top self-care options. He also ramped up his social media posts and kept up with the fast-churning news throughout every day. “I made the most of not being able to work,” he says. “I knew that hiking and reading are great for mental health — but I was doing them more to fill time. I didn’t really use them as strategies to deal with any of the negative thoughts building inside my head, especially around how my business was imploding.” RELATED: How to Avoid Headline Anxiety During a Global Pandemic Staying mentally and physically occupied in this way kept Bergeron from sliding into a negative mindset, and it actually did work fairly well. But then in June a friend was hospitalized and died. Bergeron’s “self-care through distraction” strategy stopped working. “I had never been a particularly religious person, but after his death, I began studying Eastern philosophy, particularly Buddhism,” he says. “It truly changed my life.” Now he starts every morning with a 20-minute meditation and doesn’t check email or social media until well after his first cup of coffee. His old ways of punting away negative feelings (which Bergeron thought was self-care) have changed. Now he recognizes that paying attention to those feelings is actually a stronger way to care for himself. Doing so helps him stay in the present. “I now spend time getting in touch with what I am feeling and do my best to be present in whatever I am doing,” he says. “For example, now when I go kayaking, I don’t just try to paddle as hard as I can the whole time I’m on the lake. I enjoy the silence and reflect on the things I am grateful for like being in nature with my dog.” Looking at situations in a neutral way — instead of always categorizing events as good or bad — has made him less reactive, and that comes through in everything he does. Bergeron says. “Even doing dishes can be peaceful when it’s all you are doing in that moment.” In January of this year, Bergeron decided to embark on a new career path, enrolling in a comprehensive course to become a life coach, as a way to help others find and overcome obstacles they’re encountering in their own lives. “The combination of stilling my mind and being of service to others has brought a whole new level of serenity and understanding to my life,” he says. Earlier versions of this article incorrectly stated Bergeron had lost a friend to COVID-19. Everyday Health regrets the error.
