357 Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Who Will You Be When Lockdown Ends?

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 357. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. Today we are talking about who will you be when lockdown ends? This is a question that we have seen online and it piqued our interests, who will you be when lockdown ends, who will we be when lockdown ends? So this week we explore this question. It kind of feels like people are starting to look ahead to the future, and look ahead to what that is going to bring, and so we look at our answers to this question and we ask ourselves whether this is even be a question that we should be asking, or whether there are other better questions we need to consider instead.

So what will you learn in this week’s episode? You will learn why this is not a parenthesis in life — which is kind of the way I was approaching it at the beginning and I am starting to realise that is not how I want to be looking at it, this is our life now until further notice. We talk about how to be more intentional about today and how we want to experience today and how we want to feel today and how we want to be today, in this weird time. We share some questions that you need to ask yourself to get the most out of this time, and to feel the best in this time. We talk about how you can prepare for the future or not. And finally we share the one question that you need to ask yourself again and again. It is one question that I will hopefully making a sign out of and pasting on my desk somewhere where I can see it because, as you know, I wasn’t feeling that great a couple of weeks ago and I did some things that helped to lift me out of that. I really feel that this lockdown has been more of a rollercoaster of emotions than I am used to experiencing, I think I am more of a stable person usually, and I think all of us since we have had fewer distractions, we have been forced to be rather than do and we have been forced to look at ourselves and how we feel and what we want out of life.

So that is this week’s episode, I hope you find it interesting and useful – it is a longer episode, as they tend to be with Joanna, but we share a lot of reflections and experiences that I hope will be interesting and useful to you.

Holly: Hi Joanna.

Joanna: Hi Holly.

Holly: I am looking forward to our conversation today.

Joanna: Me too.

Holly: So today we will be asking the question: who will you be when lockdown ends? And we will also be asking the question, is this the question we should be asking? So…

Joanna: Yes, we chose this question because we have seen it around, it is kind of intriguing, but when we actually started talking about it we realised that it is the wrong question to ask. So we will see where this goes and hopefully it will go somewhere as interesting as it did when we prepared.

Holly: Exactly, exactly. So obviously as usual we had a pre-conversation where we evaluated the topic to see if this is actually something we could talk about. We have a whole list of bullet points that are interesting, and I think it is going to be useful because most countries around the world I think are still in lockdown, things are starting to shift a little bit but not that much. So as we record this it is 11th May, so in the UK Boris just did his update yesterday and not much has changed; you [Joanna] are in Belgium, things are starting to change there.

Joanna: Yes so all the stores are opening today with masks and social distancing and all that, so all the stores beyond supermarkets, primary schools, parts of primary schools are going back next week and in theory things are starting to open up again. I am not going to say going back to normal because I don’t think that is the case, but they are opening up again. I think their strategy is to open up and see how high the numbers will spike again.

Holly: Right so there is a chance of course if the number of people contracting the illness spike you are going to go back to lockdown.

Joanna: And that is what is happening in Germany, so Germany has opened up and numbers have spiked again. So they haven’t closed it back down again, I guess they have to see… the problem is not the numbers themselves but how many hospitals can take in.

Holly: Exactly.

Joanna: So we will see, they have made it very clear in Belgium that these are the phases and they have given us these tentative dates when things are opening but it is very, very, clear that things may have to go back a phase before taking another step forward, so we will see. So yeah, who will we be when lockdown ends Holly, what do you think about this question, what about this question intrigues you?

Holly: Well it intrigues me because we had normal life for many years {laughing} whatever that means and now we are in this weird in-between zone and then lockdown is going to kind of gradually end, obviously it is not going to be like one day everything changes, it is going to be gradually stepping out and there is going to be a new thing afterwards and we don’t even know what that looks like and we don’t even know how much longer this period is going to go on for. So it is, I don’t know, I feel like things started to shift about a week or two ago, and I started thinking more about what things are going to be like in the future and what things I want to do, but a lot of that, to be honest, has been looking at my goals and looking at the things that I haven’t been able to do and thinking: oh well, when can I defer these things to? I haven’t really gotten to the point where I am like: what is this exciting new world going to bring to me… I can’t personally even conceptualise what things are going to be like once we start coming out.

Joanna: I think that is normal, I think anybody who is really sure is lying either to themselves or to others so, consciously, or unconsciously, we can’t know. We are in one of those, I have heard this said a couple of times, we are in one of those historical shifts. I say to my son, in the future his kids are going to be studying this period in history and he is going to be tell them what it was like, what it was actually like for the whole world to shut down for this long.

Holly: And that is huge, when you think about what major historical shifts have happened in our lifetime, the only thing I can think of is the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989 and the whole Eastern part of Europe opening up, that was massively huge, but there haven’t been many things like that, huge life-changing, world-changing, that is the thing.

Joanna: There have been… but they haven’t been as one moment in time as the Berlin Wall. I know it is not actually one moment in time, but you remember an event.

Holly: Yes you remember the wall coming down on the news and people breaking the thing up and taking chunks of it, that was huge.

Joanna: Right, but for example, the industrial revolution.

Holly: That wasn’t in our lifetimes…

Joanna: No but in general living through that must have been similar everything was changing so quickly. Usually we don’t pause in the middle of it, and be like: oh, this is a historic moment unless we are at a specific event like the Berlin Wall falling. This is a significant event because things are changing and when you think about significant events like World War II, or any war, there is a “before” and an “after” and so the world looks a certain way before and it looks a certain way after. And there are certain things that you can’t predict will happen when we talk about World War I or II, there were countries that disappeared or emerged from before to after, things that we can’t really predict.

Holly: I think what is interesting is that this is such a good example because, with wars, you have the before and after and in the meantime there is chaos because everyone is killing each other but this is kind of the opposite, we have got a before and after and in the middle we have got a pause.

Joanna: So this is where I disagree with the question, I had this kind of epiphany the other day where I was like: you know we are all approaching this the wrong way — not all, perhaps you are not dear listener — I have been approaching it from what I now feel is the wrong direction, because what if it is not a pause? So a war is a bad example as eventually it will end, worst case scenario everybody will kill everybody else and it will end, a war is a finite thing eventually it will end, whereas this situation is not necessarily a finite thing, this isn’t coming from scaremongering or anything like that, it is a health thing, there will always be viruses, there will always be health situations, this thing is mutating and we don’t actually know how long it is going to last. And I thought to myself I need to actually stop thinking about this as a pause, stop thinking about it as a parentheses, and start really understanding for myself that this is my life now. To really sink into it and stop just filling time until something starts again because I think… the first thing I did and perfectly, I think, understandably, was order a giant load of board games from Amazon, the first thing I did. I thought: tomorrow I will go to the store and get more food and today I am going to order these games so they arrive before it all totally lockdowns as if expecting for the next however long we are going to be sitting around the kitchen table playing games, like one giant weekend. And I think for the first bit of time that is how people approached it but for the longer it goes work got itself organised and we started having online things and I was like: well actually my business is online, I don’t actually need to stop anything {laughing} how can I support people through this? And school got itself organised and eventually after a couple of weeks started having online classes. Eventually people were like we can’t just pause forever we are going to have to start things up again. A lot of the way we are approaching this is that this is an episode that almost has nothing to do with anything else, anything in-between, but what if it is not? What if this is your life now?

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: And I am not saying that things won’t open up or whatever, but the world is changing, and it might change into something that is closer to what we have today than to what we had before this started.

Holly: Yeah I really approached it as kind of a break in the beginning, I went away for those two weeks and went camping and walking and when I came back I was like: well, I just walked 150 miles in two week and so now I am going to take a break. And I thought I am going to take a break from fitness for a while and recover, because my legs were like falling off — I am talking about this from a fitness perspective — and then I just kind of chilled and chilled and then started going on walks but I wasn’t doing any intense fitness that I was used to doing. And my kickboxing classes were all online but honestly my house is so small I don’t have space to kick things, so I haven’t been doing the online classes, and as weeks go by, I am realising the longer we are in this period, if and when we ever go back to normal classes I am going to be terribly out of shape. So I have started running but that is not good enough, I have never been this out of shape in the last 15, at least maybe 20 years, of my life. And that scares me because I am getting older and I want to stay in shape, and I have allowed myself to… I am not totally out of shape I move almost every day, and I am running again, but I am not at the same level of fitness that I was before we went into lockdown. So that has been one of my wake up calls when I am realising: shit I need to find a new way of staying fit. And also preparing for whenever we come out of this because if we do go back to kickboxing which I do want to do, I don’t want to be starting from scratch in terms of fitness.

Joanna: Yeah I think there is just this element of external versus internal and we have allowed ourselves to have the external dictate our lives and what we want our lives to feel like and look like so in a way we are just waiting for something external to happen so we can get fit again.

Holly: Yes, whereas now I am finding that I have to be so much more self-motivated because I don’t have a class to go to, I don’t have that structure, I have to create the structure myself and I am not so good about that. I have always been, with me fitness has always been, yes, there was a time in my life when I was really into running but I would go to the gym, or kickboxing, I would do something external that gave me the structure to stay fit, whereas now I have really got to rely on myself to create that structure.

Joanna: Yeah, and it becomes really, really, clear whether you actually want it or not. I don’t know whether in your particular example for some people it might be I love sport, I love kickboxing and so I will make myself do it, or I will choose to do it, and for other people it might be like: actually, without this external pressure to look good or be a certain way, I am not saying that is your case, but for some people it might be, maybe I will just let that go because it actually doesn’t fit into my life anymore. Maybe it is not something that I want to do.

Holly: For me I really enjoy being fit, I really do not enjoy how my body feels now and I realise how important it is to me and I can’t continue to put it off.

Joanna: That is one thing but there is something else that you have stopped doing that you won’t want to be doing again. We will go into the lessons of lockdown in a minute, but I think one more minute about this deferring your life until something starts up again. So I think it is an interesting way to look at it, what would you change if you stopped looking at it as a parenthesis? How does that change your view of this, and it doesn’t matter whether lockdown will finish or not finish or what things will look like, those external things, we can talk about that, it is kind of senseless because none of us really know. It is not about being positive or negative or controlled by the government or whatever, controlled by the aliens {laughing} it is not about any of that it is literally about your life and your commitment what you want your life to be and what you can choose for yourself within your current constraints, because we don’t know what constraints will continue and what the other constraints will be. So it is just this idea of not deferring your happiness which is something that I talk about a lot because part of being soul smart, being in the moment and enjoying your journey towards whatever it is that you want to bring in, rather than suffering now so that you can get a reward at the end of it.

Holly: I think this is important and something you said when we were preparing the conversation to get recording, you said it is like everyone in “normal” life going to work everyday and waiting for retirement so that they can be happy. Now a lot of us are sitting around waiting at home waiting for lockdown to end so that we can be happy, but it is the same thing: we need to be happy now, we need to be enjoying this period now.

Joanna: Well enjoying, I understand that there are a whole load of people for whom enjoying this period is not possible but then at least thinking about how you would structure your life, right?

Holly: And what do you want when we come out of this, because you can prepare for that as well.

Joanna: Not deferring your life, it is not deferring your happiness, it is not deferring your life. It is the same as anything where there is this concept of going through something and sacrificing how you feel now, or doing something that you don’t want to do, in order to experience something better later. Doing a job you hate so that you can afford to go on a nice vacation and then what happens when you go on vacation and the hotel sucks. Oh you are going to be mad! {laughing}

Holly: And having owned a hospitality company for ten years I can tell you that used to happen a lot, especially during the holidays, you would see people, they had saved up money, they have got, especially Americans, they don’t get a lot of vacations, they get one week or two weeks of vacation and it has to be perfect. They have these ridiculously high expectations for this one or two weeks of holidays and then when things go wrong they would go ballistic. And I remember this time we had this woman who would handle reservations for us and she and I would talk about what would really be useful would be to have an in-house psychologist or psychiatrist come during the holiday season to provide counselling and support for these people because, especially during Christmas holidays, it was so out of control and we never, unfortunately, managed to get an in-house psychologist {laughing} but…

Joanna: Yeah but how crazy that is a conversation that you actually had!

Holly: Yeah and we would have that every year and I would be like, if we could just maybe set aside a room and offer a psychologist or mental health care professional a week free lodging just to take care of these people, because they had such high expectations. So I think that is a really important thing to think about as well.

Joanna: Yeah this deferring concept and it is not only to do with vacations and work and all this stuff, the same things happens for people who are very unhappy with their bodies and want to lose weight.

Holly: Yeah, yeah.

Joanna: Deferring say: when I lose weight I will allow myself to buy nice clothes. What if you lose your job between now and then and then you can’t afford nice clothes anymore. Or: when I lose weight then I will be happy. But what happens if you aren’t then that is a big problem because your whole life has been constructed on this assumption that once a certain thing happens then you will be happy, then you will be living the life you want, so you will be putting in a whole load of sacrificed time and then it doesn’t pan out the way you expect it to and that is a huge life disappointment.

Holly: It is. So I think one of the questions you asked when we were putting together the notes for this was, what if we stopped looking at this as a parenthesis, but what if this lockdown, or this weird period, what if it lasts one year, what if it lasts two years, what if it lasts longer? What do you want this period to look like? Yes we can plan for the future, but we don’t know what the future is going to be, what do you want this period to look like? And what is going to make you happy now and what is going to make your life better now? What things can you do to improve this phase of your life?

Joanna: That is a really, really, important question and I think two years is a really good time period to play with. I have my reasons for why I think this is a good time period to play with, but I think it is long enough to make sure that you are not treating this time as a parenthesis, a break, a two-year break in your life is different than a two-week lockdown. So if it does last two years then how do you want it to change you? It is almost like, taking yourself to the future and looking back, right? And how do you want to look back on this time? I did this myself in terms of my son and his schooling and in general, our time together at home, he is ten. It just really struck me, when he looks back on this time, I was just very conscious that I wanted him to remember it as okay, maybe a bit boring, but a nice time where we did things together and there was time for hugs and all that sort of thing. I did not want him to look back on this and remember me yelling at him about his math homework all the time. It is kind of that: when you look back on this time do you want to remember you being frustrated by the situation? I would want to say that this was a key moment in my life and I really took advantage to learn to approach things in a different calmer, more fulfilling, way. That is what I would learn from this that I would look back on this as a real positive, not as a frustrating, awful, period but as a positive.

Holly: And as you are saying that, I am conscious that a lot of people have really been struggling emotionally and mentally with this time and I had kind of a down week last week so what can people do if they are struggling? In addition to, obviously if you can afford it get mental healthcare online.

Joanna: Well it can still be a positive, I am not saying this from some kind of tower of joy and happiness {laughing}, I have a normal life like everybody else and in fact the night before lockdown I was coming out of a two-month depression and anxiety stint that was really, really, rough. I had a really rough time at the start of the year, I didn’t quite get to get over it and got to a place where it was less stressful to go back into working and some kind of lockdown normality because I thought if I went to the doctor I would surely die {laughing} because I would catch whatever was out there and that would be the end of me! I didn’t really have a chance to end that period before this started and so I know all about mental health issues during lockdown for sure and I still maintain that what is really important is to do, or allow yourself to give yourself what you need and to be intentional about this phase of your life, not as a parenthesis, but if you zoom out and think of it on the timeline of your entire life, what do you want this period to signify? My whole depression and anxiety and now lockdown phase is definitely all about just learning about to be in the moment and be in my physical space and not just live in my mind and my goals and my ambitions but have to clean the house, because the cleaner is no longer coming, and I am not sure when I will be comfortable to let anybody in again. So it is about being here in the moment and satisfied with what I have. Knowing full well that my long-term, or medium-term plans of moving countries, well, they may not happen they certainly have to be deferred now and they might not happen… you have to be, I think you have to be willing to go there.

Holly: Yes absolutely.

Joanna: And so how can I make sure that I still have a good life experience? Maybe not today because I am crying all the time, maybe not tomorrow, because I have panic attacks, maybe not the next day but in general this time period. When you zoom out and look at this particular period in your life, I want it to be positive. I can’t imagine anyone who would consciously say: if I had the choice I would choose for it to be horribly negative and frustrating and…

Holly: No but I think sometimes we get caught in a downward spiral and we need to stop and do what we can to care for ourselves and lift ourselves up out of that spiral because otherwise it is never ending.

Joanna: Yes if you are in a spiral, I found certainly at the start of the year, when I was going through my depression stint that I couldn’t lift myself up and so I tried and then eventually I kind of let myself cry and it lasted a lot longer than I thought it would and none of my tools were working and the only thing that I could do was to be here in the moment and I didn’t need to do anything else except be here and if I needed to cry then I cried and it stopped, eventually, after much longer than I thought it stopped. Sometimes that is all you can do but that is still being in the present moment, right?

Holly: Yes.

Joanna: That is still giving yourself what you need.

Holly: Exactly. So since we have no idea where this is going and what life is going to be like out of lockdown we can’t actually prepare. So one of the things that lifted me out of my funk last week was I read this really good book on the Pacific West trail which I have always wanted to do but always thought: I can’t do it. Then something about reading this book triggered the idea that I don’t have to through hike it, I could walk it in chunks, I could do stages of it and then, so the same woman who wrote this book has an online course and so I signed up for her online course on how to walk the Pacific Crest Trail and I did like her four-week online course in two days and I was so excited and it really lifted me up because it was about planning for the future. However, I don’t know when I am going to be able to travel internationally to walk this trail, it could be three years from now, I don’t know, but something about that planning of doing something that I love, lifted me out. So since we can’t actually prepare, what things can we do to… prepare? {laughing} You know what I mean, life is going to be like this forever, I don’t think, but we don’t know what it looks like. Am I going to be able to walk a long-distance trail? Maybe, maybe not, but those are the things that I love, so how can we? I don’t know how to ask the question because we can’t prepare but…

Joanna: I think it is the same for me, it would be the same process that I teach through my soul-smart work which is to yes, still have goals, yes you are allowed to want things and desire things and you know but at the same time also enjoy today. So you can do your course about the Pacific Trail but the only time that is not the right thing to do is if it pulls you down. So, and the same for me, I still want to move to Ireland, so if exploring that, and looking at houses, I have actually stopped looking at houses now because it was pulling me down because I was like: now, with not even being able to travel there, the timelines are totally different and so I can’t be looking at houses right now because then I immediately go into: I am never going to be able to have this.

Holly: That is interesting because I did, as you know, your online visioning quest last week or the week before, whenever it was, and I came up with this really lovely vision board that I really enjoyed, but it is all about, I am looking at it as I speak to you and it is all about my ideal house and…

Joanna: Oh that is interesting, we haven’t even talked about that.

Holly: Oh no, let’s talk about that when we get off this call {laughing} it is so pretty, it is the prettiest vision board ever, beautiful houses and gardens and I found this magazine that I really, really, love with all of my dream houses in one magazine and when is this going to happen? Who the hell knows…but something about looking at these pictures of other people’s beautiful gardens is really lifting me up right now.

Joanna: So that is what you have got to go on, the emotion in the moment right? That is how you know, that is your inner compass, that is the soul talking, if it feels good and uplifting do it, if it doesn’t don’t do it.

Holly: I think that is really, really, key.

Joanna: There could be exceptions to that — just in case someone is thinking: but in my case etc. — send me your exception! But let’s see, as in general that is really important to remember.

Holly: You are right because if researching the Pacific Crest Trail made me depressed obviously that is something that wouldn’t be good, but it is really lifting me up to think about these things, even though I don’t have a timeline for them.

Joanna: Yes. So I will give you an example. My parents still live in, not still they will always, live in Poland I guess, but they live in Poland and we have a very close relationship. They were supposed to come here at Easter and of course couldn’t and I now haven’t seen them since Christmas and this is really tough, it is tough on them and it is really tough on my son.  I needed to have a plan, even though I have no idea when we would be able to potentially go — because I refuse to fly for the moment until I observe other people flying and not falling over dead {laughing} I need to have some proof that it is okay. So driving, that requires a whole set of borders to be open, various countries that we would drive through. So it is complicated. Plus if you were going for that distance then you want to stay a bit longer and for my husband’s work… there are just all sorts of things. But I needed a plan and so we made a plan, so we have a plan and all the things in place, we have got all the permissions we needed, everything that is within our control we have done and the rest I have to let go of. And I am hoping to be able to go in July or August and if not not I will have to revise the plan but it was important for me to have the plan because otherwise I felt really low, I felt in this: what if I never get to see them again? place. What if we never get to do this but now we have the plans with the limitations of not wanting to stay in a hotel, with all sorts of… we have something and that keeps me I don’t know, more level. I can’t say I am uplifted, because it is not super-sure, and there is still a lot of uncertainty, but it is certainly better than not having a plan. For me it was better to have a plan that might have to change than not bother making a plan because things are so uncertain, but that is very personal to me. For you it was better to do this course and play with the possibility than not, but if you are listening to this, you need to go with what feels good fo you, emotionally, not logically. So logically, that was a silly thing for Holly to do.

Holly: {laughing}

Joanna: You know logically it might not make sense to spend your time on that right now, maybe logically it would be better to spend your time on something else. I am not saying that I believe this but logically…

Holly: Yeah it is.

Joanna: But emotionally it helped to feel better. So think about that for yourself, where is your soul nudging you? What feels like there is a curiosity there, there is a spark, something that pulls you in. Be very aware, if you are talking yourself out of it, because if you are talking yourself out of it because it is not logical. It is not logical for me to leave and drive to Poland in two months time either. Everybody is like: no way! And I am like: if we are allowed, I want everything in place because that makes me feel better.

Holly: Yeah exactly.

Joanna: I want to start thinking how to do it, I know how to do it.

Holly: And as you said you have don’t the things that are under your control and then the things that aren’t under your control you are just going to wait and see.

Joanna: Exactly, so don’t follow logic here, make sure you are willing to do the things that feel good to you. So what has lockdown taught us or you specifically, I think that is a really important question to ask yourself, I think that is a much more important question to ask yourself than: who will I be? It gets you to focus on the transformation. So instead of thinking about it as a pause, think about it as transformation, have you been shown, or forced, to look at. Sometimes it is a very unpleasant thing, maybe you were forced to look at your relationship and you don’t really like being locked down with the person you are with, there might be something like that, anything like that, what has it taught you and what is it bringing your attention to? What is it for you Holly?

Holly: Do you know as you are asking that question, I was thinking: I don’t know if I have got that perspective yet. What has it taught me so far? Like I said about the fitness, I really need structure to stay in shape. And I am really having to force myself to get out there and go running. What else has it taught me? I don’t know.

Joanna: I know! {laughing}

Holly: Right so there are certain aspects of my work — okay let’s go there — there are certain aspects of the work that I do that I don’t necessarily enjoy. Some things have become more difficult but that is not just because of lockdown it is because of certain changes that have occurred that have not been easy with the work that I do.

Joanna: I was actually not going to go in that direction, I was actually going to say something else. I think what we are all being called to look at and, so obviously we talk a lot Holly, so I see this in you as well as I see it in myself is being forced to look at being rather than doing. There is much less that we can do and some people fill up their time with zoom calls and everything else and nothing changes but we were just talking about how much we have realised, both of us, how much we enjoy relaxing and downtime and that hasn’t happened in a very long time for either of us.

Holly: Yeah but do you know what, I don’t know if I really have been. I have been, I have read 21 books this year. I am ahead of my Goodreads timeline for… I have been reading so much and that is doing not being and yes some of it has been research for my novel, I just got this great book today, I don’t know where it is that came in on Amazon, that I am really enjoying that is research for my novel.

Joanna: The reading depends, some of it is doing, if you are doing it as research and some of it is being if you are reading for pleasure with no point to it. There are nuances, I understand that your Goodreads list, I have the same thing, part of it is a goal. But in general reading something for pleasure is more being than doing unless you are trying to hit your monthly target or something.

Holly: But I am still about eight books ahead of my target for the year because I have been reading so much. Actually I just thought of something I know I have discussed with you, I have been doing a fair amount of gratitude work the last few weeks and that is just because there have been certain people in my life who have been in my face and really triggering my shit and I feel like that is helping. I have kind of done gratitude work sporadically over the years but now with the consistency that I was for a week or ten days. It is kind of something that I want to go back to because I feel like there is more work to be done but that is something that has definitely been brought to my attention by lockdown and the uncomfortableness that I have been experiencing.

Joanna: So that is being willing to slow down, rather than making phone calls or writing emails. It is willingness to spend time on something internal rather than external, so it is part of a transformation I think that is really important.

Holly: So what has lockdown taught you so far and what has it brought your attention to?

Joanna: As I said, the lockdown didn’t change so much for me because I had already been on leave from everything for depression and anxiety, so I have been home for two months longer than everybody else, I keep trying to remind myself: I haven’t actually done anything this year.

Holly: Well you are still working and running your business but in a different way.

Joanna: But I have been in this house.

Holly: For a long time.

Joanna: For a very long time. So I really feel that lockdown has given me the opportunity to live life closer to how I want to be living it, really in the present moment. Not to have more space, I was just saying to you before we started recording, that everything is really busy because I have all these extra tasks that I didn’t have before, you know, cutting hair… these things I have to suddenly learn. But it is still an opportunity to do some of the things that I had been deferring, to be in the moment and so for me it really has been about a slower, gentler, pace and enjoying the moment. That has been really huge for me, I am a huge do-er and achiever and this isn’t all lockdown related because for me the lockdown is really closely intertwined with my mental health stuff. This process for me started earlier but it is really about being willing to kind of have the life that I want, not in terms of achievement, but in terms of it feeling good. So I have changed all sorts of things, there are certain things that I am not willing to do with my work, there are some things that I am not willing to do in terms of my business, so I have been really like, I don’t know I kind of let go of all the achievement stuff and goals and how much money to bring in and all those kinds of things because I was able to do that and I just kind of played with: what will be fun to do in my business? That is how the visioning quest came about, that is what I asked myself: what would be fun to do next? I had that idea and it was a huge success from all sorts of aspects. And so, I think it is that, I am more willing to just have my life be nice, my days be nice. So when my son need something, I am not like: I am so busy you have to do this and this, go away. I am like: nothing is really as important as just being here in the moment.

Holly: Yes it is like our vision is no longer this macro: what do I want for my life? But it is like how do I make today good?

Joanna: Which is what interestingly I have been teaching for years because that is a huge part of manifesting the soul smart way is to pay more attention to that, so I think I have just been walking my talk a lot more.

Holly: Interesting.

Joanna: Yeah, I have really… you know why though? Because of my mental health, there is something that is clearly not working for me, the world is just not working for me, so what can I do? Well this is what I really believe so I am just going to do that, not just on some days, but I am going to do that 100% of the time and keep bringing myself back to: what would feel good right now? And that has meant, has had a lot of benefits for our home life. I am getting all tear-y and my heart is getting so full thinking about that because I was willing to be here, I have gotten so many benefits, so yes, that is certainly part of my transformation. Yes, I don’t think I have, the other part of it is, if you think that you have learned nothing, or that there is nothing is changing for you, or nothing that you have been realising, I would ask you: what have you been ignoring or unwilling to look at? What are you unwilling to look at? It is true if you are filling your time with zoom meeting after zoom meeting then you are not looking at things, you are basically recreating old life in this new situation. I saw this great thing on Facebook actually, a couple of days ago, something about: people say that this confinement is giving us an opportunity to look at our thoughts, and really be with our own thoughts in that stillness but most people decide to learn how to bake bread from scratch instead. You know? Everybody is baking break from scratch.

Holly: Not me.

Joanna: I have!

Holly: Oh really.

Joanna: People are experimenting with things, and part of it is good. Maybe it is something that you always wanted to try so why not now? That has certainly been my case. But I think there could be an element of resisting something, resisting looking at something. When I was younger certainly and I was keeping busy with things like that it was because I didn’t want to be with my own thoughts. Now I spend a lot of time with my own thoughts, so the baking bread was a different kind of need. It is a cover up kind of thing.

Holly: Well yes, when I had a dip in my mood last week, I am pretty clear why I was unhappy last week and what I was trying to avoid and the things that I didn’t want to do and it makes it very obvious why focussing on the Pacific West trail so appealing because I wanted to escape from the things that I had to do.

Joanna: Yeah and it is also teaching us a lot about what we like, and what we like doing and what we need in order to be happy. I need a lot less structure than I thought. All these years I have spent trying to put more structure into my life and trying to not just do things intuitively because then nobody knows what I am doing and including in my business and now I see that is how I am happiest. I am happiest recording a podcast episode when I have something to say instead of showing up every Monday and making myself do it. And it is just the way that I am happiest and so that has to be okay. So it has showed me a lot about what I need and who I am. I always thought I needed more social contact than I do. In fact I don’t really miss seeing people and I never thought I would say that. I thought I would miss it a little bit but I don’t, not even friends, I am happy to be kind of isolated, which also… it is a good thing to know about yourself and because of that we had a conversation in our family about when we move to Ireland, where do we actually want to live? And all three of us, including my ten year old, decided that we want to live further away from the city than we thought.

Holly: Wow!

Joanna: Because all three of us want to be isolated because we like it. I get annoyed by all sorts of neighbour noises now which didn’t annoy me before because everything was so loud. It has taught us something about ourselves or allowed us to accept something about ourselves which has actively influenced a life choice. So I just love looking at things and consciously really noticing. It is so interesting.

Holly: Yes it is so funny that you say that because I am very much a hermit and I would love to live in a rural farmhouse where I look out the windows and see no other houses and I just see green trees and no humanity but we have lived in this house that we are in for almost ten years and we don’t know any of our neighbours, not even the guy next door. Since lockdown, our next door neighbour and his housemate have been out in their garden all the time, there have been a lot more conversations over the fence and he and my husband, when my husband grills, they talk about sausages and chorizo, there have been some meat exchanges over the fence {laughing}

Joanna: That sounds so weird!

Holly: I never… I don’t think I ever spoke to him in the previous nine years and yesterday I came home from a run, and he has been like: thank you for that sauce you sent for the sausages, we really liked it….

Joanna: So do you like neighbours now? Has it changed your view about how you would want to live?

Holly: Well I certainly wouldn’t want to go over to the neighbours for a drink and hang out and talk for hours but I like the fact that we are talking over the fence now, you know?

Joanna: So it has changed something, interesting because when you are choosing your next place to live you have more information.

Holly: But I still want to live in the middle of nowhere.

Joanna: But maybe you want the house to be closer than you thought, maybe you want to pay attention to being part of that community. I just think it is interesting to notice.

Holly: Yes, definitely community, not as close to me asI have got now, but definitely I am feeling the need for community. Those two weeks when I was in the woods and doing my thing before we went into lockdown there is this little village that I was camping nearby and I was kind of going in there everyday for stuff and food and there was this pub I was going to get one cooked meal from and I really loved that sense of community and seeing those people everyday and I really liked that feel of being close to a little village where everyone seemed to know each other, yes…

Joanna: That is what I want as well, I hadn’t known that I want to live outside things, but I definitely know that I want to be near a community or near a village. I want it to be like Gilmore Girls, I am absolutely obsessed with living in Stars Hollow! I said to Joe, my husband, that he has to find me a place like that in Ireland, that’s where I want to be.

Holly: An Irish Stars Hollow. {laughing}

Joanna: Yeah I want an Irish Stars Hollow {laughing}, possible or not possible? Anything is possible universe!

Holly: It is, it is. I was looking at farmhouses for sale in northern Scotland, was it yesterday or the day before and I was sending all these links to Agustin, like: look at this farm!

Joanna: Well I think you should start looking in Ireland instead and just move with me. We can be a community… Right… I think just wrap this up with a reminder that the title of this was: who are you going to be after lockdown? And just a reminder that who you are going to be is who you are today. There is not going to be some magical change in you, just like when I was pregnant with my son I thought that once I had him that I would magically become patient. 

Holly: {laughing}

Joanna: That’s the one way mothers are, and I thought that was a biological thing that would happen to me.

Holly: Wow, is your mother really super-patient?

Joanna: No, but I just assumed that I would have patience with my own child, and I was not and that was a real shocker to me though, I assumed than an external event would make me different. So if you are assuming that after lockdown you will be like super-productive, or a super-cook, or whatever it is, you are not.

Holly: Start practising those skills today.

Joanna: Whatever you want to be after lockdown be that person now and just start thinking about this time in history as not a parenthesis but just as a period of transformation, so that is not a period in between, that is kind of cut out of history, it is a time during which things change into a new normal and that is a totally different thing because you are changing into a new normal as well, so just pay attention to that process for yourself.

Holly: Yay!

Joanna: If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out.

Holly: Yes, we always look forward to feedback, what did you get out of this episode? I really like hearing what did this make you think about? What did you get out of it? What is your new perspective?

Joanna: Yep definitely. I was going to give you my email address but there is something wrong with it, just PM me on any of the social media if you want to get in touch.

Holly: All right and you can email me at: [email protected] or get in touch online. Thank you.

Joanna: Bye.

Holly: So please get in touch and let me know what you thought of this episode, you can email me at [email protected] or find me online and get in touch there, I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much fo listening, if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe to the podcast, if you haven’t already, it would mean the world to me and it will also make it easier for you to get the episodes each week. Next week’s episode, I don’t know what that is going to be yet, it is probably going to be a solo episode, but I will be, I think, calling more people on to the show to talk about things that are of interest to me, mostly outdoorsy, walking long-distance-trails stuff, we will see where this goes. I am definitely not going to be doing interviews, I don’t know what I am going to be doing, I think it is going to be more in-depth conversations, similar to the ones I do with Joanna, but with other people I know well and I know I can have an interesting and useful conversation with. So we shall see where this goes!

Meanwhile remember to visit: https://hollyworton.com/357 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you very much for listening and hope you have a fantastic day.