Weekly Wellbeing 

A Checklist for Self-Care

The last two weeks have gone so well from what I could see. Preps and Juniors seem to be well and truly settled back in school now.  Next week the school welcomes our Middle and Senior students back to our classrooms. We are all so very excited to have students back at school.

 It is probably an understatement to say there is a lot of change and confusion going around right now. All the uncertainty we have just experienced might lead to some new fears, anxieties, frustrations, or nerves. Feeling strange after all we have been through is very understandable and expected. I expect some of us do not quite know what to do with all those feelings though.  I have made the following self-care checklist to help us through this time. 

• Give yourself time. Our world has experienced loss and change recently, when we experience loss, we must allow ourselves a grieving period. 
• Let yourself breathe. As we breathe, we are telling our body that everything is okay, life continues, and we remember to remain calm. 
• Encourage Kindness. We must remember to always be kind, both to ourselves and to others. The more you spread kindness the more those around you will spread kindness. 
• Talk about it. We need our relationships and community in times of confusion and loss far more than we need them when everything is going well. We need to process what happened, we need support, and we need perspective, the best way you can get all of that is by having meaningful conversations. 
• Find things to be glad of. We have spent a lot of time by ourselves in a sort of bubble. When we are in our own bubble, we cannot see what is happening in other places, we can only look around at what is in our bubble. Sometimes this is a good thing, ignorance is bliss. But sometimes our bubbles do us a disservice. If we are unable to see what is happening outside our own bubble, we can focus too much on ourselves. When we are focused on ourselves, we might take what we have for granted. We are not grateful or glad of what we have. If we look for things we can be glad of, we can start to realise how lucky we are. As we realise how lucky we are we often start to worry less, as a result our worries do not take over our life as much. 

 Take time to be in the moment. We spend so much time thinking about the past and worrying about the future, as we do this, we are hindering our ability to live in the moment. Try taking intentional time to practise being in the moment. 

 I truly hope you can spend some time over the next few days going through and thinking about this checklist. Try working through the list as a family. As you go through, know that with time, kindness, discussion, gladness and living in the moment, you will most certainly be ready for anything, including going back to school. 

Cheyenne Mason -  Student Wellbeing Officer