I’ve recently been enjoying Michelle Obama’s new book, The Light We Carry. I wasn’t sure about it at first as it is a little sentimental, but there are also a lot of interesting insights and a nice tone of hope – made even better by listening to the audiobook, I find. One aspect early on in the book struck me, as it’s something I’ve spoken and written about before.
Michelle describes struggling with the pressures of the pandemic while still coming to terms with not being in the White House anymore. Undoubtedly Michelle Obama faced none of the fears about income, job security and access to healthcare that millions of people around the world had to cope with during that time, but it’s interesting to hear that some things, like loneliness, isolation and uncertainty, affected even those at the top.
Like many of us, Michelle turned to a new hobby during this time. Hers was knitting, which she had never done before. She describes the benefit of doing something productive, which used her hands as well as her mind, and which was on a small scale, to distract from all the big problems worrying her at that time.
“I've come to understand that sometimes the big stuff becomes easier to handle when you deliberately put something small alongside it,” she writes in the book.
“When everything starts to feel big and therefore scary and insurmountable, when I hit a point of feeling or thinking or seeing too much, I've learned to make the choice to go towards the small.
“On days when my brain apprehends nothing but monolithic catastrophe and doom, when I feel paralysed by not-enoughness, and my agitation begins to stir, I picked up the knitting needles, and give my hands a chance to take over. To quietly click us out of that hard place.”
I find this really rings true. I’ve written before about the benefits of taking control of small things, and how that can spread a sense of calm through the rest of your life. It could be tidying a small area of your home, drawing a picture, or baking a batch of bread. I think there’s a reason why these hobbies surged in popularity during the pandemic, and it isn’t just that we all found ourselves stuck inside the house and needing distraction.
Focussing on one small thing, which is easy to complete and shows tangible progress, can be a wonderful way of reigning in overwhelming worries and never-ending to-do lists. I find activities like this also take me away from my phone and computer screens for a while, giving me a few minutes of respite from constant updates.