What if I get sick? What if my family gets sick? I can’t keep on top of all the parts of my life and manage the COVID-19 changes. What if I lose my job? What will happen in the next few weeks/if we go into lockdown/before this ends…? People are going crazy – should I be panicking too? People aren’t looking after their community. How am I going to manage this?
PHEW! That’s a lot of worrying! AND you’re not alone. You may be experiencing anger, sadness and stress too. I am. My family are. My friends are. My clients are.
The basic concepts I have elevated in response to this pandemic are: you can only control yourself and your responses. Be present in this moment. Have compassion for others, and compassion for yourself.
Let’s start with: keep going with hygiene practicesof 20-30 second handwashing regularly with soap. Practice social distancing. Keep in contact with vulnerable people while maintaining distance. When you worry about getting sick remember that you are controlling your own actions. Trust that your family and friends engage in their own hygiene and social distancing practices to look after themselves.
Slow down.Yes, it feels like the world is moving at a million miles an hour but that is black-and-white thinking. Yes, we do have to make quick decisions at the moment. But we can only make decisions with what we know now. Information will absolutely change in the future; so might your choices. Have compassion for yourself and the decisions you make now.
Slow down. When your mind is spinning, and your words are spinning, and you are zigging and zagging between one task and multiple others (I’m not talking from experience…) you will get less done, you will feel more stressed. Speak slowly. Think slowly. Control your pace.
Be both here in the present while being aware of the future. That doesn’t mean obsessing or predicting the future. It meansusing your wise mind to be both zoomed in on the trees while being aware of the forest. Be present, here in this moment, because you cannot predict the future; know that right now you are doing whatever you can to get through this.
So many things are uncertain. There are no guarantees around financial security, government policies, lockdowns, or groceries. Trustthat whatever happens you will cope. You will manage. You have moved through all other events in your life and you have done so because there is something wonderful about you. Have compassion for yourself. From the position of compassion and non-judgement, whether right or wrong, choose to believe that others are doing whatever they feel they can to manage too.
This level of crisis will become the world’s new ‘normal’ and we will adjust over the next few months. Set your new habits and approaches now so that compassion, self-control, and kindness are your new normal. Remember that this is relatively short term too.
When your thoughts are running around crazily, slow down. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to others. Slow down. Control only what is in your power to control. Slow down.
By Melissa Bourchier, Paediatric Psychologist