We are not meant to live in isolation. What makes us healthy and whole is the connections we form with one another.  With our families. Our friends. Our colleagues and our community…  The thing we need the most to feel healthy has become harder to get.

After more than 30 years in the field of social work, I know one thing to be true. We do not need to be victims to our situation. We have choices to make, each and every day about how we want to live our lives. How we choose to show up for ourselves and each other.

Practice #4 - Build Structure

I cut my teeth as a social worker working in residential treatment with children who had been removed from their homes. These were children who came with all sorts of struggles. Victims of child abuse and neglect. Drug addiction. Homelessness. Lives that were unpredictable. It was in that uncertainty that their lives became unmanageable. They’d act out. Run away. Get into trouble. Cut school. Use drugs and worse.

When they came to the group home, life was structured. Extraordinarily structured. We woke at the same time every day. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner on cue. The kids had homework time and chore time and bed time. The structure was clear. It was consistent and it was predictable. The kids responded to the structure. Within a few weeks of coming to live with us, they settled down. They relaxed into their new environment and they were able to do the work they needed to do. On the off times that the structure fell apart, we knew right away. The kids showed it in their behavior. Things became unmanageable quickly.

Healthy structures allows us the opportunity to take a breath. To predict. To trust. A healthy structure is security. It is an opportunity to contain what needs to be contained. A box holds thousands of legos. A house provides safety for a family. A societal structure lets us know how to proceed. In the absence of structure we feel anxious. We worry that no one is in charge. We feel afraid and unsafe and this is particularly true with children.

Try this - One of the challenges of this time is that the structure we’ve all come to depend on has been blown to smithereens. School at 8? Poof. Work at 8:30? Gone. Swim practice, baseball practice, gym class? Nope. If I don’t have to go to school, if no one is expecting me at work, if there’s not any more practice… then what? As much fun as a day with no responsibilities seems, what happens when it’s day after day?

Set the morning alarm. Get dressed. Plan things to do each day. Meals. Work. Homework. Exercise. Have free time? Work in the garden. Learn Italian. Clean out a closet. Resist the temptation to just let things happen. A long time ago, a friend had a sign on his office wall. It said. “Only Dead Fish Go With the Flow”. Build structure into each day but remember to be flexible. Sometimes the best laid plans fall apart. Relax. You’ll have another opportunity tomorrow.