IS IT REALLY FIVE YEARS SINCE LOCKDOWN?

In March 2020, England went into lockdown from the COVID-19 pandemic. The experience of the lockdowns and the pandemic will impact every generation, with each generation having had their lives affected in many different ways.

Whether you had just had children, or if your job stopped overnight, or you were in education and you were trapped at home. Ultimately, everyone’s plans were scuppered and everything was up in the air. We learned new terms like ‘pivot’ and ‘working from home’ became a ‘thing’, we tuned into government updates every night and we watched as families experienced traumatic loss and devastation.

Five years ago, we entered a world where, if you were lucky enough not to catch Covid19, the highlight of your day would be your mandatory walks, going to one shop for essential items (not loo roll!), or watching the nightly briefings and hearing the increasing figures appear on the screen. This is a time in history many of us may find hard to look back on.

“Why should we still talk about this?” I hear you ask.

The simple answer is that some of us can’t. It could be that you lost a loved during the pandemic, that you were denied access to your vulnerable family members, or that you lost your business and livelihood. Even five years on you might not be ready to talk about it or write about it and that’s okay. Yet for many of us we talked about it then and can talk about it now. We each have to take our own decision about that.

Personally, my family’s experience of lockdown affected each of us differently. I lost half of my business overnight; I had 24 hours of panic thinking about having to take up a job as a delivery driver to make ends meet. It took my husband to remind me that when I started my business, I had no clients at all. I was not starting from the ground up, I had to build on what I had already created.

Therefore, I started introducing more media training into my business, which was something I had not done consistently because I didn’t have the time. This change allowed me to become pickier about the retained clients I had and have today.

I got very quickly to a point where I could train anybody but as far as retained clients were concerned, I prioritised working with people I like and resonate with. Most of those clients who left me did so with goodwill and came back later, some new clients ‘turned up’ – a couple were frankly awful in their treatment of me and my team. When one later came back asking to work with me, I turned them down. My red lines shifted considerably.

The lockdowns also opened me to embracing the spiritual side of personality and thought processes, allowing me to really find what the positivity that I want to absorb into my life.

I also saw my children struggle with their different educational settings. One losing her A-Levels and going to university with no support, another completing her Fine Art Degree in our back garden, and my youngest connecting with friends through gaming and growing to impressive height (I literally mean growing taller and he’s now 6ft 1). For my husband there was very little change, because he had been working from home for 19 years by that time!

We must never forget that for some of us, this five-year milestone is reminder that we lost people under horrific circumstances. We must never forget that.

Sharing your experiences, whether that we through blog posts or social media posts makes your page a place of discussion. It fosters engagement as people reflect and talk about the impact it had on them as individuals. This can also make you visible to journalists who are talking about this milestone anniversary.

So, if you feel able,  don’t be afraid get writing, get sharing, and remind each other of our resilience through the toughest of times.