Dogs love me. Scorpio. Storyteller. INFJ.

The Covid19 Pandemic Helped Me Uncover My Anchors

I’m about to step on a plane this morning and I’ll probably finish this article when I’m 30,000 feet in the air. Why am I boarding a plane? It’s because I’m back to traveling for work. Just over 2 years ago (my last trip was March 3, 2020) my company shut travel down for everyone.

I have to say that the company I work for is pretty forward-thinking and I do feel like they care for their employees. They’re generous with time off, benefits, and let us determine where we want to work.

Of course, all offices were closed and we went fully remote but now they’re open again and our policy is optional if you come back, provided you’re vaccinated.

Part of me is excited to go back on a plane but another part of me wants to just stay at home. I want to be home with my dogs, my partner, kids, and be productive.

Yes, I’m way more productive working from home. Productive for my company and productive in my personal life.

This flexibility, this feeling of being in control of my work life, is a silver lining of the COVID pandemic. It’s changed so many aspects of our lives and nothing is going back to the way it was.

The one good thing it’s done for me personally is helping me identify my “anchors.”

What are anchors? Anchors are all the things that “weigh” you down. They could range the gamut from self-destructive behaviors to prejudices. These false narratives often form the basis for our behaviors in society and most of us never question them, myself included.

Until one day I started questioning them.

For example, one of the anchors was my preconceived notions of being a husband and how I treated my wife. After doing the hard work and thinking about how external factors were feeding these false narratives, I no longer call her my wife but my partner now.

Things changed for the better for the two of us and I can say that we’ve never been deeper in love, having a raging desire for one another, and have never had more intimacy.

Another anchor that I’ve been working on cutting is my weight. I lost over 25 lbs since the beginning of the pandemic and I working hard to cut another 25 lbs from that anchor before I really cut it loose, but in all this introspection I found a really big anchor.

This anchor is one of the nastiest and demonic ones I’ve ever encountered and I'm not ready to share that one.

But it needs to be cut loose and I will work on it this year to free myself of its weight.

#Essay #Relationships #WeightLoss #Intimacy