This is me

AT HOME WITH PRIYANKA SAHA

AT HOME WITH PRIYANKA SAHA

Our ongoing ‘JA At Home Series’ aims to unite women during this difficult and isolating time. It’s a way to share on our experiences, provide insights into our current lives and ways in which we are all managing, in the hopes that as a collective, we can stay connected from our homes and help one another through this. Share your experience

Priyanka is a good friend of the brand and the founder of The Lily Calvert Fund which was established in memory of her baby daughter Lily. The fund aims to raise awareness and support of paediatric palliative care, and encourage conversations around grief and child loss. This is not Priyanka’s first time in isolation and shares insight into her current world and how she is guiding and navigating her way through this time. 

www.lilycalvert.com

How are you? Mostly I am pretty good, some days we are crawling up the walls with a two year old who can’t understand why he is not allowed to go to the playground anymore. But we are trying to use this as a chance to connect and get back to basics.

Tell us where you are and what you can see? We are in St Kilda East! It’s Melbourne so that means it is flat and there is no view except of our little backyard with its lemon tree and bougainvillea. I have always struggled with the flatness of Melbourne. I believe that hills and contours help maintain perspective on all things, they give height and dimensions. The flatness makes it harder to rise up! Both figuratively and physically!

What are you reading? Everything. I was just given’Boy Swallows Universe’, I read a lot of articles about resilience, grief and learning how to thrive after trauma as that is my subject matter expertise and its appropriate right now!

What are you listening to? JA’s disco play list of course! We try and start each day with a silly dance session. It really lifts the spirits and gets us all moving and in a good mood!

What are you watching? We’ve just started watching the Ozarks in the evening. During the day I’ve been using all this home time to rebuild my website, media kit, and film and create a lot more content for collabs and brand partnerships. I’ve also written some articles and sent them off for submission to various editors! That is all squeezed around looking after a boisterous 2 year old. So we also watch a lot of kids shows!

What are you wearing day to day? Activewear! My JA are getting a good run!

Have you implemented some structure to your day? Or are you taking it a day at a time? Being in isolation is a little bit familiar to me because in 2017 I was in isolation while caring for my baby girl who was dying from a terminal illness. We had a very small circle of friends and family who would visit and we didn’t go out much. I learnt a bit during that time – for me to stay sane it is critical to: get up and shower every single day, make the bed, get changed out of the PJ’s, moisturise and brush my hair. Also make sure the house is tidy. That is the basic start to every day. Then we let it roll from there.

Are you doing any at-home workouts?  Yes our morning dance sesh count right? – some we make up, sometimes we tune into cosmos kids yoga, or Sam Wood or my pilates studio. Also going for family runs and walks! Its been fun reconnecting with hubs with exercise

How are you staying positive and practicing self care? Practice gratitude, have a shower and get dressed, have stricture and projects. But also – the often overlooked key to staying positive is to allow yourself to feel all the feelings. It may sound counter intuitive but leaning into the shitty feelings, saying them out-loud, can really clear up a lot of anxieties and fears. Giving them space gives you permission to assess whether they are real or irrational and lets you move back into a space of positivity.

What are you most grateful for right now? Roof over my head, my family, having love around us.

What are you most hopeful for? The future. This is temporary, this wont last and we will be our sipping margaritas again soon. It is really important to remember that.

What has been the most unexpected blessing that has come out of this for you? The family time together in otherwise busy busy busy schedules.

Are there any goals you have set for your self? Yes! Lots of goals relating to building up new work, business etc.

What are you most looking forward to in the future? Drinking margaritas in a bar! Overseas holidays!

Any final words/tips you would like to share? If someone asked you a year ago if you could stay home and bot go anywhere except the supermarket, I bet you would say ‘I can’t do this’. But you can! Look at you doing the thing! Carry that with you! You can do this! This is a bizarre piece of history but you are doing your bit to help! Remember it next time you doubt yourself, you can do the unimaginably hard and seemingly impossible.