{"id":12873,"date":"2021-03-01T06:15:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T06:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/?p=12873"},"modified":"2021-03-01T06:21:10","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T06:21:10","slug":"february-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/?p=12873","title":{"rendered":"February 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"12873\" class=\"elementor elementor-12873\" data-elementor-settings=\"[]\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-section-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-12015fe elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"12015fe\" data-element_type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-row\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-26d37a9\" data-id=\"26d37a9\" data-element_type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-18e6cce elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"18e6cce\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-text-editor elementor-clearfix\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p>Hello, my friends,<\/p><p>How is everyone doing? Not great, right? It\u2019s ok. You\u2019re not crazy and you may not even have realized the connection, but the struggles we are all having are directly connected to how long we have been in this pandemic. Pandemic Fatigue is a real thing and the longer it goes on, the more of a toll it is taking on people\u2026even if you don\u2019t realize that\u2019s why other things are so hard.<\/p><p>It seems to be sneaking up on us all. Just not wanting to do what we need to, staying in, low motivation, just feeling blah\u2026 Bad things just feel worse.<\/p><p>We need to take better care of ourselves and others. There is a website \u201cMake Sure Your Friends are Ok\u201d that talks about having hard conversations. When we talk to people and say \u201chow are you?\u201d we don\u2019t really want to know. We just want everyone to be \u201cfine\u201d and we tell them that we are \u201cfine\u201d. But it\u2019s not the truth. Let\u2019s speak the truth! Let\u2019s say the hard things. Let\u2019s share and connect and be willing to be vulnerable and be present for others.<\/p><p>When someone says \u201cfine\u201d, say \u201cBut are you really? Because I know I\u2019m not.\u201d See where it goes from there. Let\u2019s listen to each other and truly \u201csee\u201d our friends and family.<\/p><p>How about our kids? Are they ok? They most likely are not. We can\u2019t necessarily fix it for them, but we can \u201csee\u201d them and say, \u201cI know you\u2019re not ok. No one is these days. How can I help you through this time?\u201d<\/p><p>They (and we) need to keep ourselves sort of ok. Here\u2019s how:<\/p><ul><li>Exercise! Exercise! Exercise! \u2013 Do anything! Move your bodies. Do it daily like your life depends upon it.<\/li><li>Get out into nature<\/li><li>Connect with friends \u2013 even if you feel like one more zoom might drive you over the edge. It also might nourish you in ways you didn\u2019t know you needed<\/li><li>Get creative \u2013 whatever that looks like for them<\/li><li>Read a book<\/li><li>Watch a laugh-out-loud comedy<\/li><li>Have a buddy to connect with even for a quick text daily to check on each other<\/li><\/ul><div>\u00a0<span style=\"caret-color: #000000; color: #000000; font-family: 'Brush Script MT'; font-size: 37.3333px; orphans: 2; widows: 2;\">Bette<\/span><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello, my friends, How is everyone doing? Not great, right? It\u2019s ok. You\u2019re not crazy and you may not even have realized the connection, but the struggles we are all&hellip;<\/p>\n<p> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/?p=12873\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12873"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12880,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12873\/revisions\/12880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balancedparenting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}