Hi all :D hope you're doing well.

I'm sure a lot of you are being affected by Covid in different ways. For me, I've been getting less anxious about actually getting covid which is really good, but I can't help but think about the future when covid ends, and it's a pretty mixed bag to be honest.

I thought maybe people would go out more because perhaps we feel as though we took advantage of our freedom (mind you, I live in Melbourne), which I would personally love because I'm naturally pretty sociable around others and would love to think we're heading that way!

Unfortunately another part of me also thinks the complete opposite and it really makes me question how life will change for the worse. What if we get so busy with our lives that there is no longer time for friends/family? What if the people in my own life don't want to go out as much because they're too tired from a post-covid world? that weirdly terrifies me because I would hate to end up in a world where we socialise less than before covid was a thing.

I know this might be a bit far into the future here but I just feel a bit depressed thinking about that. Socialising keeps me feeling fulfilled and to not feel like I have enough of that fulfilment in life, it just makes this whole thing really sad for me :( Would love to hear your thoughts on this and I hope everyone's enjoying their fathers day!

Hey Trish, thanks for sharing your thoughts with us. We're sorry to hear about the anxiety you've been feeling lately. We understand it can be frightening to think about how our lives might change after the COVID restrictions are removed. We hope you know that our community is hear to listen and provide our support through this difficult time.  If you feel up to it, we'd recommend reaching out to our Coronavirus Mental Wellbeing Support Service. The website will be regularly updated with information, advice and strategies to help you manage your wellbeing and mental health during this time. You can also call our dedicated support line, staffed by mental health professionals, which is available 24/7 on 1800 512 348.
We hope that you keep checking in to let us know how you're going, whenever you feel up to it. 
 

Hi Trish_@

I feel for you so much as you try to make sense of a future which appears so uncertain.

Living in Melbourne, I can relate to so much questioning. Being a mum to a 17yo gal facing her VCE, I sat with my daughter yesterday (after the state announcement) as she faced a number of potentially depressing triggers and a heck of a lot of questions. I will wait a while, where she's in a better mindset, before I lead her to imagine the difference she needs.

As I say to my kids 'Imagination is an incredibly powerful thing, more powerful than what you may have come to believe'. It accompanies wonder and precedes action. From Martin Luther King Jr through to Albert Einstein through to Richard Branson, wondering about a possibility, imagining the course and working their way toward the outcome is what created their reality. Imagination is powerful, indeed.

Typically, the enemy of imagination is nonconstructive preordained outcome. For example, you may easily imagine a post covid period where you socialise more intensely and more thoughtfully than you ever have before. You imagine suggesting this to people and what you're met with is 'No, that's never going to happen'. Everyone tells you this. They have preordained this time as a time where what you imagine will never come to be. I know, sounds quite depressing but imagine you don't take 'No' for an answer. You go on to make it so, to make this time one of positive difference. It becomes a brilliant time, a time like never before. Everyone ends up saying to you 'Wow Trish. You're amazing. We could never have imagined such a time as this!'

I have found the key to imagination becoming reality involves imagining exactly how we're going to manage our way toward the outcome. If we want results, we can't simply imagine the outcome without imagining a management plan to get us there. What do you imagine you will need to do, to reach your goal, to bring it into reality? Do any new ventures come to mind? When we add ventures (not just repeat the same ones over and over) we are adventuring. When our recreation is powerful and meaningful enough to reform us in significant ways, it becomes a form of re-creation which we evolve through. Not suggesting you take up skydiving but if you were to, it may re-create you as 'I am more fearless than ever before'.

Post covid holds the potential to reform us. Where pre covid had us basically living our life, I believe post covid can have us living in ways we only once imagined.

:)