The COVID-19 pandemic,  already all over the world and moving fast, is going to test our homes and our families, but will also prompt us to look at ourselves. We will be in the position to really question where we are and ask ourselves if we have the homes we would like, if we know how to live together as a family, and if we personally have the solid, well-grounded emotional intelligence to cope with this situation.

Let’s start with the most basic and immediate: our home. These days of self-isolation or quarantine give us the opportunity to look around and think about whether this is the room we want to be in for the next 15 days, or even 40 days?  If this is the kitchen in which we’re going to have to prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner day in day out? Look around now: What do you dislike, what would you like to be different? Now is the time to make some changes.

Now is when we can make our homes the best possible places to spend a pleasant and beneficial time –even if it has been forced upon us.  To order, clean, tidy, and to recycle what you don’t need. If until now we were so busy that we couldn’t spend time on our houses, now the opportunity is in front of us. Depending on where we live and our own situation, it might be that we are temporarily unable to go to work or the gym or socialise with friends. This makes the home context all the more important for our well-being and for those we live with. Now more than ever, our homes are our refuge and our family our main companions.

It’s not alarmist, it’s realistic and has benefits. If we live with people, parents, brothers, grandparents, roommates let us take advantage of this time to talk to them, to have fun together, to get to know each other better. Share the household tasks, exercise as a team, even if there is not much space; read for a while each day, make meals and try to surprise ourselves with our best recipes. Keeping well-informed is important but we should make sure our sources of information are reliable – and not to become addicted to our newsfeeds. Common sense and unity are the best allies.

Finally, this is an opportunity to spend time with ourselves, too. A time for reflection to think about what we might want in the coming months and years. To ask ourselves:  Is this life the one I want?  If it’s the one you wanted and if that’s how you want it to go on, then set daily goals, try to meet them, and value what you have. This virus is going to allow us to reflect on our scale of values. The speed of our activity-driven days took us away from focusing on priorities. This moment of crisis can become instead a place of calm and can return home to the place it deserves, and us to the heart of our own lives.