Many of us are dealing with significant challenges through this time of pandemic. I don’t want to minimize the trials that others are facing with simplistic solutions, but I would like to offer a suggestion regarding managing these emotionally charged events. Often times we cannot control many of the circumstances surrounding an event. What we have some control over is our reaction, and the amount of time spent focusing on the situation.
This may be easier said than done, you say. Sometimes it can be as simple as finding the silver lining, or how things “could have been worse”. I had been feeling sad that both my daughters are graduating from university in June and their graduation ceremonies were cancelled due to COVID-19. When I would think of it, it would bring me down. I could choose to really dwell on it, and go further down- calculating how much money we lost on our deposits for the canceled Airbnb reservations in Kingston and Montreal. This is neither productive, nor healthy. The other day I was turning a page on our photo calendar and I saw a picture from last spring. I realized that if this had happened last year we would have had a daughter trapped in Scotland, that our family trip to Britain would have been cancelled, and that our kids would not have had an amazing summer together exploring Europe. A missed graduation seems a lot less to lose.
“Well that’s nice for you”, you say. Maybe this has happened at the worst possible time for you and you can’t possibly find that silver lining. I understand. However, dwelling on the negative aspect of the situation 24:7 will take a serious toll on your physical and mental health. Solomon, purported to be the wisest man to ever live, wrote in Ecclesiates that there are different seasons in life. He mentions planting and harvesting, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing. I am not saying one shouldn’t mourn for lost opportunities or lost loved ones. Allow yourself to grieve and give yourself fully to that process. However, do it when it serves you and not when it is may harm you. For example, try not to binge watch news stations, or pore over your credit card statements right before bed-time. By all means, we should look through photo albums with pictures of a lost loved one. But you get to choose when it is healthy for you do to it! There needs to be time to rest. Time to heal. As a doctor, may I prescribe “Netflix therapy”? Allow yourself to be distracted at times by a good book or a mindless television program.
Again, I am not suggesting we ignore the problems in our life, but we choose when to look at them. A wonderful married couple we know taught us a great lesson, years ago. She had a significant illness and was bed-ridden for a number of weeks. He worked from home and would see her all the time. They made a decision that she would only discuss her symptoms with him once a day at 5 pm, (unless something changed significantly). “My throat feels like molten lava, my eyelids like course sandpaper and every joint is aching…” She was very descriptive! The rest of the time, when he saw her, he wouldn’t ask how she was doing, she wouldn’t be hurt by that, and she wouldn’t try and tell him her complaints. They needed to check in daily, but it wasn’t good for their relationship to constantly dwell on her symptoms and it wasn’t good for her.
So we may not get to choose our circumstance, but we do get to choose our reaction and our focus. My office has been closed for over a month. What will happen to my business when it re-opens? What changes will I need to make in how I practice? I could dwell on these questions and stew in the uncertainty. Then I can’t enjoy the time that I am not working! There will be time to look at these questions. I will re-open one day, and I know things will be different. I don’t need to rob myself of today’s peace by wondering exactly what that will look like. There will be guidelines from the government and the chiropractic association about best practices and I can adopt those when they are finalized. I don’t need to stress about what they may be right now.
We can focus on the fear and uncertainty of this time, or we can focus on the positive things that are happening around us. It is impossible to do both! I really like a quote I saw on Facebook: “Fear does not stop death. It stops life. And worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles. It takes away today’s peace.”
Why am I talking about this as a chiropractor, you ask? For 30+ years in practice I have dealt with the effects of stress on the human body. Many times that stress was not physical at all! With mental stress, our body cannot distinguish between the fight-or-flight stress physiology caused by a lion chasing us and that of binge watching negative news programming. I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch the news, but schedule some physical exercise afterward to burn off the stress hormones your body created as you watched. And limit your exposure!!!
There is very little we can control in this current situation. It is encouraging that we can control what we focus on, and that by controlling that we can change our response, and how we feel in these times of uncertainty.