Student Wellbeing
For a New Beginning
It may not feel that long ago, that you were preparing your son for a new beginning. A fresh year of high school, perhaps his first. A year of new challenge and opportunity. Of necessary growth, struggle and adventure.
And now, in this strangest of years, you may find yourself preparing your son yet again for another new beginning, his return to school.
In this column, I’d like to offer a poem.
The poem is by John O’Donohue, and titled ‘For a New Beginning’. The poem captures something of the budding energy of new beginnings. The readiness of leaving something safe and outgrown behind, and of the quite noticing of how your son may be willing himself to return back to school.
Poetry won’t be everyone’s bag but I hope that you may find some delight and resonance here.
For a New Beginning
In the out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you are ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home to a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Ongoing Self-Care tips
Self-Care Tip #8: How you feel right now is perfectly normal, so give yourself permission to feel it.
As time drags on with this pandemic, an Australian academic, Dr Kimberley Norris, who studies what prolonged periods of confinement does to humans, suggests we are now in a “third quarter phenomenon”.
In case you are interested, the first quarter is where we see heightened anxiety and panic buying (remember the toilet paper rush!). The second quarter is known as, ‘the honeymoon period’, where we started enjoying being in our PJs all day and maybe take up a new habit.
My Self-Care Tip #8 is: How you feel right now is perfectly normal, so give yourself permission to feel it.
In an ABC survey conducted between the 18th to 22nd April, Australians reported that their feelings of despair, confusion, fear, anger, loneliness, anxiety and stress all increased.
So going back to my self-care tip, I’d like to personally give you permission to feel what you’re feeling right now without any shame or guilt or embarrassment.
Let yourself feel it. Acknowledge it. Sit with it. Explore it.
Now, I’m not endorsing self-pity here. I just want you to know that how you feel is okay and that if you allow yourself to feel it and explore it you’ll very likely feel better for it. And once we’ve done this we tend to naturally move forward through it.
Self-Care Tip #9 – Ride your bike
There is something about riding a bike that makes us feel happier.
The article below, lists a whole bunch of reasons why cycling makes us feel happier.
There are the obvious reasons like, we feel physically and mentally better when we are active. And there are also unexpected reasons…Cycling gives us an enormous opportunity to savour things. Whether it’s the appreciation of a bit of freedom and space from home, or the exhilaration of a fast descent, cycling encourages us to ‘breathe it in’.
And the great thing about cycling during this time, is that you can cycle with friends, as you’ll be socially distancing (by necessity so you won’t crash into each other!)
If your old bike hasn’t had much use in a while, you may want to think about pumping those tyres and oiling that chain. Humans seem to be happy when they are on two wheels.
George Vlamakis
Student Counsellor