Lock-down Has Altered My Perception Of What's Important In Life

Every day I wake up and feel grateful for where I live.

When it became clear that our lives were going to change drastically, my main concern was financial. 2020 began disastrously with my husband losing a contract he had spent weeks tendering for. It meant that I was unable to network and tell people about my Relax Restore Revitalise programme that I’d just launched and which I felt was going to revolutionise my earning potential in this saturated yoga market. Instead, literally all my earnings had to go towards paying bills.

As a child I lived a very privileged life from a financial perspective. I didn’t want for anything. That’s not to say I was spoiled with toys and clothes - but as a family we had what we needed, we lived in large, very comfortable houses, we went on holidays and my siblings and I all attended private schools.

We weren’t so privileged on an emotional level, in fact childhood had many traumatic moments. Then at the age of 17 my mother and step father divorced. My mother moved to France a few years later, my sister was living in America and my brother in France. Both my real father and step father were estranged from me and I felt abandoned. It didn’t help that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

My husband (at that time my boyfriend) was set on becoming an airline pilot but his dream was dashed when the Gulf war broke out in 1990 and the training he was due to attend with British Airways was cancelled. By the time airlines began recruiting again, he was ‘too old.’ Both of us were uncertain about our futures.

Financial security has not really been present in our lives very often, in fact our reason for living at the farm is because my husband was made redundant while I was pregnant with my son and we were forced to sell our home in Shropshire and move in with his parents.

We realised that we were never going to be able to buy a house in Sussex so were extremely grateful when my husband’s parents decided to gift the farm to their 4 children, leaving us half the farm house which had to be divided and our half extended which cost us financially and emotionally (always difficult with family).

All this background is so that you understand why I am so insecure about money and why when we were first put into lock-down, I was stricken with panic.

But living this slow pace of life has enabled me to rest. In fact I took two weeks to switch off from work which gave me the opportunity to see where I could take my business. I had lost sight of where I was heading because I was totally obsessed with earning money to get through each month and eventually pay off the mortgage.

During lock-down we have got on top of so many jobs in the garden that needed doing which is incredibly satisfying. The studio has temporarily become an exercise room and green house until recently when we re-erected our old greenhouse and dug a large vegetable patch.

I spend hours each week planning menus. I am the designated shopper which I now do at 6 a.m once a week which doesn’t cause stress. I cook most of the meals and as such have not wasted any food!

Before lock-down I had been part of a women’s group who met on a monthly basis in a woodland to spend time in nature and connect to her wisdom. I have continued to be in nature and have relished the opportunity to take in my surroundings. I have listened to nightingales, spotted a common lizard, seen a huge slow worm, watched a variety of birds and love hearing the much more audible hum of insects.

I am enjoying a more physical exercise routine with Yoga playing its part afterwards to stretch my muscles and bring me into the present moment.

I love having my family together and playing the supportive roles of mother and wife. I relish that my extended family are meeting on Zoom and speaking more than we ever did before!

I have realised that what is important in my life is not money. It is family. It is love. It is nature. It is being there for others. It is being present.

May I be reminded of this wisdom frequently because what is important to me is living a healthy, wholesome, non materialistic life where I take only what I need and give back what I can in return. One where I accept that I have more than enough because I live in a beautiful house, in a beautiful part of the country, where I am surrounded by nature which nourishes me. It is a life where I put family first and work second because we’re should work to live, not live to work.