
Today is my 30th day of lockdown here in Malaysia, alone unless I’m counting the cat! It’s a surreal experience in many ways – one that I know I’ll never forget. I live in an apartment some way out from the centre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The first two weeks of MCO (Movement Control Order) started on 18th March, but were then extended to 14th April. Then it was extended again to 28th April. We wait to hear any day whether there will be further extension, but maybe with slightly relaxed rules (the fasting month of Ramadan will start on Friday).
The rules are pretty clear. Only 10 types of business/ essential services are allowed to operate and people are only permitted to make reasonable steps out of their home for groceries and pharmacy. If you are caught out otherwise, the punishments can be very severe. But, beyond that, I firmly believe in our duties to each other in this and the necessity to ‘flatten the curve (I’m writing a separate post on this).
In my own case, there’s an additional factor, one that feels frustrating and unfair (but I have accepted – it is what it is). I gave up smoking around 17 years ago. At that time I suffered a lung collapse and a serious situation that could have killed me. I lost a business I had set up with all the money I had at the time, but eventually was glad that I still had my life to live. That left me with COPD, and my left lung after surgery was very prone to infections. Over subsequent years I’ve had pneumonia quite a few times. However, in recent years with attention to my health, a good doctor and good medication it’s been so under control that I’ve really had very little issue for the last 2 years. All this means that I’m in the high risk category if I catch the corona virus and therefore the implications for me could be simply life threatening. ‘Flattening the curve’ won’t be the end of risk time for me and I may only really be safe once there’s a vaccine.
Many who know me know that just over two years ago I lost my son (who lived with me) tragically and suddenly. He would have been 18 now, on the verge of completing A levels before thinking about heading off to university. I know he would have struggled to cope with the uncertainty of what we’re going through now. For me, those two years have not just been about the grief of losing Thomas, but also a complete restructuring of my own life, including my job. That was hard as someone for whom my work had always been important and with a sense that in my role here in Malaysia I had barely had time to achieve what was possible. But it was gone, Thomas was gone and I had no choice but to put in the hard and lonely work of figuring out what my life is for, what is to be my contribution in my remaining years and how I would ensure I leave a legacy that somehow makes the world even a little better. As an expat in this part of the world it’s near impossible to access professional counselling, support or psychological guidance. So, in dealing with this I’ve been on my own, needing to dig deep to draw on my own resources, even at times when the well may have felt completely dry. There were very hard and painful times, but by putting in that hard work they’ve been less and less frequent. As a result, my level of confidence to really shift in to fully positive mode for shaping my life going forward has been stronger and stronger.
In the down times over these thirty plus days I’ve felt the sickening dread of knowing just how easily I can slip in to anger against the world. I had battled up from the floor over these two years, suddenly for life, the universe and everything to seem to conspire to thwart me.
When I find myself thinking like this I can’t like the me I see in the mirror too much. Selfish and self-indulgent aren’t personality traits I’ve ever liked in anyone, least of all myself. Each time it’s happened my response has been to give myself the biggest of metaphorical kicks up the backside and a firm order to get on with it and stop sulking. The fact is that I still have a life that millions in the world would envy. If I live my life positively and with conviction I can contribute to making a better world. In those circumstances there is little justification for wallowing in what might have been, fantasies and wishful thinking. My duty is to dust myself down, pick myself up and get on with things with 100% energy and focus.
A few things have helped:
Gratitude
I started gratitude journaling around a year ago, after seeing it recommended in a few books and podcasts. I use a form of journaling based loosely on one known as the five minute journaling method. It literally only takes that much time out of my day first thing in the morning, and last thing at night before I go to bed.
In the first days of lockdown everything felt disturbed and i stopped journaling. I quickly realised that it was now more important than ever. It starts in the morning with writing down three things for which I’m grateful. These can be simple or complex, but it’s important to push through with three even if I’m starting the day in a less than positive frame of mind. For me, it can be something as simple as my gratitude for the air in my lungs.
Then, I write down three things that, if they happen/ I do them/ make them happen will make the day great. This forces me to focus on priorities in the day, but also to cut myself some slack. If I’m not in a positive frame of mind I might look for small victories, little achievements that still remind me that I matter and I make a difference and have agency – little things that move me forward positively. Finally, in the morning, I add a single daily affirmation – something that feels significant to me and sets the context of that day in to the longer stretch of my life.
The evening session consists of writing down three amazing things that happened in the day. To me, the impact of this is the knowledge in the back of my mind throughout the day that i’m going to be asking this question of myself come the end of the day. i admit sometimes ‘amazing’ feels a bit of a stretch, but it forces me to think about the outstanding positives, even in a day that was grey and listless. Finally, I acknowledge one way in which I could have made the day better. This is not an excuse to beat up on myself. I approach it with self-compassion, but still treat it as an opportunity to hold myself accountable. One of the things that dawned on me was that I might have a “poor me” story for myself and a belief that the world has thwarted me after I had worked so hard, but so does almost everybody. We all have some form of this story and some sense that goals we were pursuing, things we aspired for, have now suddenly been blocked. I cannot assume that my story is any more significant for me than anyone else’s story is for them.
I’ll be honest. When I first started this journaling I was a bit doubtful about it. As a result, my activity was a bit sporadic and there were times when I dropped off. However, i was willing to believe that there was enough in it, on the basis of recommendations from a number of writers I respected. So, I stuck at it. Thankfully, now it’s as regular as clockwork and two little bits of my day that I really look forward to. I focus on gratitude that isn’t comparative, but simpler. What in my life, right now, is a cause for me to feel gratitude? On darker, harder days I may have to search my mind a bit, but I can always find something.
Meditation/ Mindfulness
I hesitate a little to mention this, as there’s some degree of cynicism around in some quarters these days. However, I can say without any hesitation that it’s been a critical part of my climb out of the dark ditch over the last two years. I had a meditation habit before I lost Thomas, but it wasn’t always regular and I occasionally drifted away.
I realised that it’s not the easiest habit to build. We tend to think that success at meditating defines as calming the mind. However, especially when I started, far from feeling that my mind was being mastered and calmed, there was the realisation of just how busy and uncalm it was.As a result, I didn’t feel very successful, even after a few months of trying hard to stick at it. Things got better once I eased off on the ‘success’ ideas and accepted that an objective of just watching and being aware in the moment of my busy mind – without judgement – was enough.
Over the years I’ve explored different methods and vehicles. These days I’m probably most comfortable with the ‘Calm’ app. Incidentally, as a paid subscriber I have the right to give out five guest passes for people who want to try out Calm for a while. If you would like one of these passes, please send me a message and I’ll get you fixed up.
Movement
On this, I have some good news and some bad news – a boast I’m proud of and a confession of a task not yet mastered.
Confession time first – with access to the gym denied for the last month, I promised myself that i would have a strenuous exercise session of the High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) variety on at least 4 days each week. It’s only a time commitment of around 20 minutes, but I have to admit the reality so far has been only about one session each week, instead of the intended four.
So, that’s a task that is a work in progress.
On the plus side, even though I’ve only stepped out of my apartment three times to go to the supermarket (which is just a few minutes walk from home and permitted under the lockdown rules here), I’ve kept up a strong commitment to moving through walking each day. There’s a regularly recommended piece of advice to ensure getting 10,000 steps of walking in each day. With a bit of rearrangement of furniture, I’ve ensured a loop around the rooms of my apartment. Most of the time I combine my walking, at a reasonable pace, with reading, listening to podcasts or reviewing emails etc. The results are clear from the data from my Fitbit. After this very good week, my target is to see if I can do 50 miles in the coming week. I stress – barring a single walk to the supermarket this is done entirely inside my apartment – just round and around!

Schedule and Structure of the Day
Many people, in these lockdown circumstances can be very easily tempted to decide that they’ll take a relaxed and flexible approach and do what they’re in the mood for, except when they have commitments for phone or video calls (or a child’s online school class commitments). However, I had learned what I needed to adjust to working from home over the last couple of years and I know that without some structure to the day I can too easily get sidetracked and distracted. the result is usually a dissatisfying day without enough achieved and an expanding ‘to do list’.
I’ve also learned that, especially on days when there’s a lot to distract and mood isn’t easy to handle I need to be relatively kind to myself in terms of expectations. So, I structure some blocks of the day, but leave some other blocks of time unscheduled. For those blocks, how I use them is determined largely by my mood and level of positivity as the time approaches. If I’m working on something and I’m comfortably in flow, I let it spill over in to the unscheduled time. Alternatively, I give myself the freedom to do less structured things during those periods, including checking social networking etc. This is not all wasted time, as i’ll explain in a minute.
One way that i am a bit tough on myself is an old habit that i haven’t yet got to work on, but probably should. If, by the evening, I haven’t completed all that I had hoped I will try to push on in to the evening. This tends to coincide that i get a new burst of energy in the evenings (as a bit of a night owl type), so I feel the work i get done during that time is of quite decent quality. However, the downside is
Controlling Media Exposure and Social Networking
There are things happening in the world that are unprecedented and therefore it’s a very human and natural instinct to feel the need to track the news and aim to keep on top of the facts, the data and what’s happening. Once upon a time we would have settled for a limited time, probably in the morning, to read the daily newspaper to be informed. Then, later came TV news which over time morphed in to 24-hour TV news channels.
When you then layer on top of all this media exposure the commentary on it that comes from social networking and it all gets very overwhelming. it becomes so easy to get tempted to disappear down the rabbit hole of news and information for hours on end. After being disappointed with lack of productivity on a couple of days I figured that I needed to change some things. I figured that deciding to go ‘cold turkey’ wasn’t realistic. So, instead, I built three specific blocks of time in to my day when I permit myself to check the news, read and post social networking stuff and engage with others’ posts.
These three blocks of time go in to the schedule mentioned above. I’m not going to claim that every day i stick within the parameters of these blocks, but i’m sure that it’s better than if I just left it unstructured.
Doing for Others
There’s a lot of scientific evidence that loneliness can be as damaging to life expectancy as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! Today, it is a massive good fortune that we have the means to make contact with others, anywhere in the world, So, for my sake as much as anyone else’s it was vital to me from the start to make sure that i was having frequent and regular contact with others. Even with family and close friends there are times when busy living means that we neglect our communication with those we’re not seeing regularly.
So, I committed to reach out regularly and have meaningful communication with family members and my closest friends. I then went through all my contact lists and drew out a list of names of people I had maybe not been in touch with for some time. I committed to make contact with 4-5 of these people each week – reaching out to check that they feel OK and have contact. This has lead to some really delightful interactions, catching up and filling in the gaps in each other’s lives since last contact.
In late 2018 I joined a Facebook Group for parents who had lost a child suddenly. In the early months I was fairly passive in that Group, but it was a help to know that there were people there who were more likely to understand my feelings and emotions when there were difficult days. After a few months I responded to a request for moderators for the Group. The Group is quite big – about 1,600 members. We manage with two admins and around four of us as moderators. this has brought me more actively in to a role of being a sounding board and help for others. Over time, this helps me to deal with my own emotions and to feel that I’m doing something positive. There are times it can be a bit harrowing as the circumstances of some people’s lives are dire and bleak. In recent weeks with the stresses of what’s happening in the world we’ve seen an increase in numbers of new members and more existing members reaching out to unburden themselves as they deal with a whole load of new challenges and problems. This sin’t a commitment that fits neatly in time or can be planned for. But, it’s important enough to me that I accept that and adjust around emergencies when they arise.
In the very first days of the lockdown I saw an article referring to an idea that originated in Canada for ‘Caremongering’. The idea was to bring people together, through social networking, to provide community, local support to others. I searched around and discovered that another expat, Joe Mathers, also from UK, had had the same idea and had formed the Malaysian Caremongering Group on Facebook. Diving in and getting involved was a great way to feel less isolated and also because it was clear that, as good as the local arrangements might be to support those in need, there would be gaps and people who would find themselves in severe difficulty. Within days there was a flood of interest. Today, the FB Group is approaching 10,000 members. IIn turn, there are more localised Whatsapp Groups that enable for close coordination. There are usually two Groups – one in which requests for help are identified or raised and one in which volunteers coordinate for raising funds, purchasing goods and deliveries.
This is all entirely spontaneous and among people who have never met. However, it’s been heartening that we’ve been pretty effective and ensured that food and vital supplies reach those who would otherwise be going hungry. These might be refugees, undocumented migrant workers or others not getting support through official channels. As an expat, with above average risk from the virus, I may not be able to run around outside taking supplies to the needy, but from my home I can still play my part. This also feels right from the perspective that I know my circumstances are so much more comfortable than many others.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Filed under: Life | Tagged: alone, caremongering, caremongering Malaysia, coronavirus, covid-19, daily structure, doing for others, giving, gratitude, isolation, Joe Mathers, lockdown, loneliness, lonely, meditation, Mindfulness, movement, walking | Leave a comment »