How are you all coping in Lockdown 3.0?
Last March when COVID hit I lost all my consultancy clients overnight. They were airlines, hospitality and theatre industry companies.
How have I survived?
When people ask me how I’ve survived losing all my travel and hospitality consultancy clients overnight back in March. I tell them this…
I’ve been through the worst loss ever already losing my daughter 4 years ago and again losing my son 3 years ago. Everything is comparable on what you have experienced before and sadly I have been through much much worse regards loss so yes it did flaw me for a little while because I love my clients and seeing them suffer upsets me. Seeing those I love and care about poorly or suffering through lack of employment upsets me. Having the way I coping with my grief removed threw me off kilter.
I’m lucky that financially we have been able to survive thanks to my savings from previous hard work over many years, the government support and my husband. I know we are fortunate with this.
My real struggle
My anxiety about my surviving daughter getting sick and dying from COVID was the thing that flawed me. I have worked hard on dealing with this ever since. This is the reason some friends may feel I haven’t been in touch with them that much this past year. I have had to switch myself off from a lot of the negative worry and messaging around COVID. Combine that with having to shield last March because of a recent heart operation too and you can hopefully understand why I have had to be distant.
Friends
I was also conscious that if friends were already struggling with lockdown and their own issues with depression then they certainly didn’t need me offloading onto them too or (as some friends have said previously) make them feel bad or guilty for their moans that they feel seem insignificant compared to mine. In this global pandemic I didn’t want to make anyone feel any worse than they already did and everything is relative to you too.
i don’t do waiting…
As anyone who knows me will testify I don’t rest on my laurels!
I’ve spent my time up skilling and investing my time into my own travel business, that’s incidentally doing very well despite the pandemic. My travel business is named Sarah Stephens Escapes because travel was the very thing that saved me after we lost Violet we “escaped” a lot and I learned how healing and therapeutic travel can actually be. When I lost my clients in March 2020 I decided to embrace what I knew and what had saved me back then. I am so glad I did as it has helped me to remain positive throughout the majority of the pandemic and even though I can’t travel or as escape as much as I would like to I get to life vicariously through my clients. I discovered I enjoy planning holidays for others as much as I do my own trips.
I’m also back doing PR consultancy again and training/coaching others that I love too.
charity
Watch this space too as I have epic plans underway on the charity front to continue to build Violet’s legacy further and big plans for this blog to evolve too. I have been busy in the last year…
JANUARY STRUGGLES
Sorry for the lack of posts in January (until now) as some of you may know the end of December and start of January is always hard for me as Arthur’s due date was 7th January so his birthday should have been around this period. Always a tough time for me but this year made worse with the pandemic and friends sadly losing loved ones too.
HOPE AND KINDNESS
There is hope out there people please try to stay positive and to cling onto any glimmer of light you can find. Another friends little boy was on the heart transplant list and fortunately some parents in their darkest hour agreed to donate their own child’s heart. These kind and amazing souls may have saved the life of an spectacularly brave little 5 year old boy who has already, with his legendary mum, done so much good for the world. Kindness still exists people so please continue to believe in the good out there and that this will prevail.
Big hugs, stay safe,
Love
Sarah x
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