Well, after four years and *almost* having been convinced that I was simply invincible against its powers, I finally got Covid-19.
(“It came for you at last!” my sister said, which made me laugh – between coughing fits).
But hey, it wasn’t all bad. My momma called me every day. My sister did my laundry. My good friend brought me a care package filled with my favorite things (mainly kombucha, Cheetos, and Reese’s peanut butter cups).
That being said, anyone who knows me knows that not only am I productive, I’m the queen of productivity, so after three days of laying on the couch from morning til night, I was most definitely ready to get back to work.
The following Monday morning, I promptly arose, took a shower, and sat down at my desk determined to do some work. Must be productive! I told myself.
The thing was, my body didn’t exactly agree.
By 11 am, every ounce of my body was saying “Please, please, please, can we go back to bed?”
And this, of course, is where the “haiku yourself to contentment” method comes in.
It’s easy. When you’re feeling one way and want to be feeling another, you write yourself a haiku.
(What’s a haiku? It’s a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables).
So that morning, frustrated with my body’s need to recuperate and seeking contentment, I wrote myself this haiku:
I give my body
All the time it needs to rest
I feel at peace now
And you know what? It helped. Being so short and simple, my haiku quickly became a mantra of sorts, taking me a little part of the way from frustration to contentment each time I recited it. I also found that tapping the syllables with my fingertips helped to calm me down.
So the next time you need cheering up, or you need to feel ok being sad, or whatever it is you might need, write yourself a haiku. See where it gets you <3
