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Allow Space for Grace: Quarantine Resources from a Social Worker of Color Pt.2

We are officially closing out April. Like many of you, I am struggling to remember what day it is since sadly, we are still under quarantine. Every day, several times a day, we are consumed by COVID19 media coverage even from those in the media tackling the virus themselves (hello..Chris Cuomo). Unfortunately, the coverage mostly highlights the number of people who have tested positive, died, lack medical equipment or staff, or need mental health providers. If medical updates were not enough, we have to hear about how our community is losing local businesses, loved ones, neighbors, and jobs. Eventually this starts to take a toll on your mood, thoughts, and feelings resulting in grief, stress, and anxiety about what is to come. **Whew** It’s a lot to cope with especially since social isolation leaves us with sparks of anger, sadness, hope, hopelessness, happiness, fear, anxiousness, stress and more. But please know: WE ARE ALL IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC! Feeling all of these things makes you human. If you didn’t go through a wave of these emotions, I would be concerned. Give yourself permission to feel all of these emotions. However, we want you to cope with it in a healthy way. Listed below are some ways to help you cope.

Resources to Help you Cope..

Logging Off

  • Exercise 
  • Listen to music
  • Coloring/drawing 
  • Cooking/Baking
  • Read
  • Take a stroll in the neighborhood/park
  • Pray/meditate
  • Journal 
  • Puzzle
  • Dance

Therapy

  • TalkTherapy
  • Virtual Therapy
  • Find a Therapist
  • Therapy for Black Girls
  • Brown Girl Therapy
  • Melanated Social Work Podcast
  • Therapy for Black Men

Meditation

  • 70 Free Guided Meditations for various topics around forgiveness, letting go, love, etc
  • Resources for free guided meditation practices

Olivia Byrd, social worker, travelign

About the Author..

Olivia Byrd holds her bachelor in Human Development from Howard University and Masters from New York University Silver School of Social Work. She describes herself as a wanderlust ally, looking to inspire the world to be a better place. She currently works for a US Congressman, while working on developing a social impact consulting firm. To reach out and connect with her, I suggest sending a DM on her instagram, @welcome2dalivshow

Quarantine Resources from a Social Worker of Color

2020, it is truly starting to feel like a movie and not the type we were trying to manifest from our vision boards. I can guarantee you that none of us entered 2020 with the movie Contagion in mind. Yet, here we are experiencing something that has never happened in our lifetime, a global pandemic, we all know as COVID19. Who could have imagined an epidemic would be the one thing that unites us all around the world. Not I, but here we all are at home under self-quarantine with no place to go but either work or the grocery store. While the first half of 2020 was grim and the next half of 2020 is filled with uncertainty, let’s fill it with possibilities. Let’s take each day by day and make our 2020 visions come true. Come on, take your vision board out of the trash or the closet dust it off, and lets us use this time in quarantine to bring what we can from our boards to life. Almost always everyone puts the same topic on their vision board health and fitness, spirituality, love, learning, starting a business, charity, and or community service work, a new career. I am going to list out resources for each area to help you bring your vision to life and share them with those in need. All while doing this, I want you to be kind to yourself, take your time and write to us let us know what resource you used and found helpful. Also, feel free to share a resource you found useful, but it was not listed, and you would like us to share it.  

Resources to live your vision in….

Women of Color Exercising

Health and Fitness

Spirituality

black mean taking an online course

Learning

black woman in a boardroom

Starting a Business

black woman laughing

COVID-19/ Community Support

New Career

Make sure to follow the blog to read Part 2 and hear Olivia’s thought about grace in a time like this.

Olivia Byrd, social worker, travelign

About the Author..

Olivia Byrd holds her bachelor in Human Development from Howard University and Masters from New York University Silver School of Social Work. She describes herself as a wanderlust ally, looking to inspire the world to be a better place. She currently works for a US Congressman, while working on developing a social impact consulting firm. To reach out and connect with her, I suggest sending a DM on her instagram, @welcome2dalivshow

COVID-19 Morning Routine

Can you believe I rolled over in my bed and was almost late to work? Stressed about the steps from the bed to the office this morning I still had the same feelings of anxiousness when I’m about to be late to work. But why? I’m already where I need to be in order to do work? I was so worried about time, I was going to literally roll over and walk into the next room in the same clothes I slept in. Then I thought my feelings of anxiousness had to come from some other place. I figured my mind and body needed to transition to the next day. Here’s what I did:

woman practicing the camel pose

Moved my body.

I literally did 5 minutes of this camel pose (well, attempted at least). It helped me feel accomplished.

shower

Showered.

It’s essential and self explanatory. Something about water, it can be an instant mood changer .

Made up my bed.

This let my brain know that night time was over and I needed to get on with my day.

Budgeting while Paying Off Student Loans

Below is a time block of how I budgeted during the time I paid off my student loans. I used the FREE budgeting software Everydollar. This was the most “on top of it” I had ever been with my money and it helped me reach my goal much faster. Here’s a typical month activity from May 2019.

Last week in April:

Logged into Everydollar and listed all the income that was coming my way for the month of May.

It was my birthday month so your girl was lit!

Then listed all my planned expenses for the month until there was no more left to budget for.

I should have increased my eating out budget since it was my birthday and there were probably going to be a lot of birthday dinners and get togethers.

2nd to Last Weekend in May:

Logged into my online bank and added each transaction for the month.

This was the hardest but most necessary part. It’s when I had to get real about what I did, but it’s also how I grew some discipline. If you need a lot of help, do this at the end of every week. When you get better, do it every two weeks. And when you feel like you mastered it, do it at the end of the month. (Everydollar also has a paid version that will sync to your bank account, its nice but not necessary as a single).

Last Weekend in May

Planned my budget for June, using the data from May.

So because I was so real with myself in May, it made me better for June. But I did have to make some decisions. Clearly I went over in the gym, but since that was important to me at the time, I increased my budget by $85 for June. I overspent in “Nails” but that was because I was feeling hype over my birthday and got an extra design. Next month I know to get a fill and ask for something more basic.

Paying Off My Student Loans

Real Housewives is in the background while I log onto greatlakes.com. I’m laying in my bed with a bottle of water and ramen noodles on the nightstand. My computer is at 20% but I’m sure my charger is arms length away. I’m signing in like I’ve been doing every 14 days for 5 years (give or take a couple moments). And even though this is my 130th time logging in I’m still not ready for the security check. I see my phone just out of reach, so I strain my left arm feeling a stretch deep into my lower back. My balance is $1,542 and I noticed because of the missed brunch and extra dollars I save this month, I have enough in my checking to pay it. Instead of selecting “pay minimum payment” or “pay other amount” I’m about to select “pay remaining balance”. I do a silent twerk in my head. I click submit, and thats it.

There wasn’t a standing ovation or pause, just a confirmation and a “thank you for scheduling your payment.” Paying off my student loans had been such a goal from me ever since reading the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I knew I was doing something special for myself, but submitting the payment was a little lack luster and anti-climatic. I had honestly been on autopilot for the past 6 months that it felt like just another payment.

It wasn’t until the 7th day, when I got paid again. For the first time, I asked myself “what do you want to do with your check.” The next week, I was asked to go to a bachelorette party, and paid for the trip and hotel in one week. I signed up for a trainer at a gym. It was like my thoughts switched from defense to offense (from a “i have to” to “I’m going to”). I didn’t feel like I was going to work because I had to. I encourage anyone to choose a debt they have and pay it off. The shit feels good 🙂 Currently, I’m deciding the best way to learn some tech skills and and start my own business.

I Almost Bought a Home

Home buying is stressful AF. When I returned home from New York (after getting laid off) I finally found a job. My sisters best friend let me know about a down payment program by Well’s Fargo where they were giving away 20k in down payment assistance to first time homebuyers. The only caveat was that we had a small amount of time to find a home. I was working to pay off my student loans, but jumped at the opportunity for free money.

I searched, and searched. Lost a couple offers. I was coming up on the last 2 weeks, and I found the cutest house. A 2 bedroom big front and backyard. Close enough to my grandparents with restained wood and an all white kitchen. Now before I started this process, I sat down and wrote out a budget, what I felt comfortable spending, but somehow I found myself signing an offer that was about double the price I said I was comfortable with. During the entire home inspection process I was sweating because I knew I’d be devoting half of my paycheck. My home inspector found that although the house had all brand new appliances and fixtures nothing was hooked up to the water lines. After my grandpa urged me to get the water lines inspected, I found out there was a hole in the sewage line. I thank my grandpa and God because although I had a lump in my throat from the amount of money I was going to spend, if there wasn’t a hole in those pipes I probably would’ve went through with the decision. The hype around the money, competition, and other peoples opinion had me feeling like I was on a fast moving escalator with no way to slow it down. Like I was going out for a walk, and I was on the leash.

The experience left’d me scarred, no doubt. I also came away with some valuable insight.

  1. Find someone you trust (and is smart about this) to be a sounding board. During the process there were so many different voices in my head about what I should do. My grandpa was always the clarity I needed because he owns real estate, and at the end had no vested interest in whether I bought a house or not.
  2. Make a commitment to yourself. With every house I kept creeping up the price because I wasn’t 100% sure of what I wanted.
  3. Have your own money. When I was using the grant there were so many stipulations that it felt like I had to comply with someone else rules in order to have this opportunity. Because purchasing is such a big decision, I think if I had more of my own money I wouldn’t have felt so desperate. Not saying to bypass homebuyer programs, because I’ll probably still use them in the future.
  4. Be Patient. I still haven’t mastered this. It’s when I got wrapped up in the time frame that I was ready to buy just about anything. I know have a plan for my money. I’m saving to buy a duplex, so that I can rent the other side to cover my mortgage payment. But that plan is smart but takes a lot more time.