For years, I allowed my Inner Critic to tell me that I wasn’t talented, attractive, intelligent or knowledgable to become a coach, a writer, or - in fact - to do anything other than take low-paying, easy jobs and allow myself to be treated like dirt. The same thing happened with relationships - I put up with behaviour that I wasn’t happy with because the Inner Critic convinced me that I should be grateful that somebody nice wanted to be with me… and that I could never do better.

So what is an Inner Critic? Well, it’s that part of you that stops you from taking the next step - applying for that job, publishing that article, speaking your mind - because it’s whispering to you: “Who are you? You’re not good enough

I don’t know about you, but the first thing that pops into mine is an image of a woman in a bath full of bubbles up to her neck, candles precariously balanced around the side, a glass of red wine in her hand.

“You can’t take a break,” my Inner Critic reminds me, “You haven’t saved the world yet. Look at it - there’s still so much work to do. How can you just sit around reading a magazine and enjoying yourself? Besides - the things that give you pleasure are bad for the environment.”

Sound familiar?

When I told people I was preparing, slowly, for the oncoming forced quarantines and potential shortages of food in the supermarkets, I was told not to be paranoid. When I voiced the fact that the global stock market is crashing, that trading had even been suspended, that our money may not be safe in our banks, I was told to be more optimistic.

Well, to me, being optimistic is not about covering our eyes and ears and singing "la la la everything will be fine". That's Pollyanna-ism, denial, self-delusion, or toxic positivity - and that may have served you just fine so far, but in the end it's only going to be more painful when you realise that sometimes you have to make tough decisions and act…

Striving to feel happy all the time is not a realistic (or desirable) goal. In fact, studies show that the active pursuit of happiness can make you unhappy — the more we value happiness, the less happy we feel when in low-stress situations. In other words, the thought “my life is easy and stress-free right now — so why don’t I feel happy?” causes us to feel more disappointment at our own emotions, leading us to feel even worse.

I know you don’t WANT to feel anxious — nobody does. But if you’re beating yourself up for not being OK right now, then please take a deep breath and read on.

I have to be honest; when this lockdown started and I envisioned anything from a couple of weeks to a few months of being stuck indoors, I had big visions. I wasn’t the only one. After I posted that article, my news feed was hit will what felt that thousands of articles suggesting that people use their time at home productively, take on a new skill, start a new side-hustle, etc etc. One particularly striking meme that hit me one morning - I can’t seem to find it now - pointing out that Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Isaac Newton discovered calculus while they were at home during the plague. The suggestion was - what have you done, loser?

Tons of people are already leaping to the ‘rescue’ with articles about how to keep calm during a pandemic. Most of these articles talk about how we should meditate, breathe, try not to panic, wash our hands, and exercise. Yes, that’s all great stuff, but have you tried to meditate when your brain is going “omg I’m going to die omg what about my grandparents omg what about my income”, when you miss your friends, and when your body is crying to be out in the sun? That sh*t is HARD!

Life can be overwhelming. The news is full of horror stories, the environment seems to be falling apart, and every day you hear something else that makes you want to curl up under your covers and hide…. Sometimes it just feels completely hopeless. You think what can I do about any of that? It all just feels too much..