Is It a Suck or a Support?

It's been eight weeks since I last left the house, and while nothing about the pandemic is ordinary, I've settled into a rhythm at home that helps eases the daily stressors of confinement and onslaught of scary news. 

View in my studio

When the at-home orders first started to come down and all around us shuttered, we mourned lost opportunities and changed plans. Since then, especially these last few weeks, many services have returned in a modified form. I'm not sure what your inbox looks like these days, but mine features a daily flood of new online offerings. 

My local art studios now offer online classes, workshops, and open studio sessions. I have an encouragement of life coaches and mentors whose services are now accessible to me no matter where any of us live. Even my dogs can continue their studies and hobbies virtually. 

Fleur and Emerson join me for a PT session

And then there's the possibility of meeting with family and friends for happy hours, meals, or just catch-up chats. 

Where in the beginning of the pandemic we had nothing doing, now we can fill every hour of our days with free and paid services, in addition to various social activities...

And this is great, but also makes me question which among these offerings is truly a support... and which is a suck. And that pretty much comes down to how it makes me feel. 

For me, family happy hour is always a support

I don't know about you, but a lot of the opportunities I thought would be grand have proven to be more of a suck than a support. We can attribute this to my personality. I'm an introvert and sick girl, which means social activities come with a high cost. I'm picky about where my time and energy go at the best of times, but in this new covid-19 pandemic world, the choices I make feel even more critical. Anxiety and uncertainty are high for everyone, so inviting in more stress thinking it's a support is extra bad news bears. 

I registered for a lot of online workshops before I realized I didn't like the format

Here's what I've learned so far:

1) I really need to determine whether what I invite into my life is a support or a suck before I commit. A lot of this comes from self-knowledge (do you want to socialize more right now? How do you feel about working on / communicating through a phone or computer? What do you feel is missing from your life?), but given the uniqueness of our current situation, it's taken a lot of learning in the moment as these new opportunities come available. 

Pro tip: Before you put money down, find a few free tutorials online in various forms and see how you like them. Many people offer free previews and workshops right now, so track down an artist or instructor you admire and see what they're offering. Figuring out where your comfort level is means you have the foundation to move forward with confidence.

2) I love studying with knowledgable teachers, but for me, Zoom meetings are a special kind of hell. It turns out I prefer recordings to live meetings, and when I view a recording, I want a streamlined, high-quality, focused lesson rather than a casual one. And if I have the choice to watch a recording versus studying with a teacher, I will always choose studying with a teacher, but in order to make that work for me, I need online learning to be a one-on-one or very small class situation. 

Pro tip: If you're considering an online class, ask yourself whether you need the class structure, or whether you would be better served creating a group of trusted friends yourself, or hiring a private mentor. If paying for a class is right for you, question whether you want a live class, such as those offered at Lillstreet, or whether a pre-packaged course, like those from Domestika, is better for you. Also, just because an online class is what's offered, that doesn't mean it's all that's available. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want.

3) If I participate in a live online class, I need to do the work by myself later, not while in class. I come to class to learn what I need to move forward with my own project and appreciate when the instructor makes themself available for questions via email. 

Pro tip: Before you sign up, ask your instructor how the live online course is structured and see whether you can modify it as suits your learning needs and style. 

3) Big groups have never been my thing, and this is doubly true of in my online life. If I love a group of people in real life, that doesn't mean the energy and connectedness we usually share is going to transfer over nicely online. This has been a big learning curve for me, and I've stopped attending most online meet-ups because they left me depleted -- and often stressed out! Obviously that's not what these gatherings are meant to do, but even ones with the nicest of people and the loveliest of tones most often haven't worked for me. 

Pro tip: If you're not feeling the online interactions, bow out. It's okay to love your particular group and still not enjoy an online experience with them. We're all learning these new waters, and it's okay if the boat you got on makes you seasick. If you want, consider how you might restructure the experience so it does suit you, but don't be afraid to simply decide they're not for you. 

However you approach the endless new offers, I hope you find the supports that are right for you.