Lisa Find Love

Living life in fear is no way to live, no matter what is going on in the world. Without a doubt, these are troubling times, filled with uncertainty, sadness, perhaps physical pain as well. Much of what’s happened is out of anyone’s control. The new reality of social distancing, working from home, constant hand washing and finding innovative ways to stretch groceries, paper products and cleaning supplies is enough to produce anxiety in any sane individual. Yet, coming to grips with fear is essential. Instead of struggling with this powerful emotion and allowing it to grow, do something to stop it. Here’s how. 

What Is Really Bothering You?

While this may be the last thing on a to-do list, it’s important to sit down and identify what is really bothering you now. Just answering “COVID-19” is too broad, yet putting this on paper is a good starting point.

Before diving in, however, make sure family or business duties or tasks are taken care of. They must take priority. Then, feel free to devote sufficient time to centering on what’s most fear-inducing. 

It may help to do this exercise with eyes closed. Think about what went on today that may have produced fear. Did something someone said (in the home, on TV, during Internet browsing, reading the newspaper) allow that knot of fear to metastasize? Did it mean reticence about doing something or shying away from any personal contact (even at a distance)? Write down specifics, anything that comes to mind.

The list will vary from one person to the next, although there are some common threads people mention about what makes them afraid. These include:

• I’m so fearful to be around other people, even with social distancing. What if I’m next to someone who’s got the coronavirus? 
• I’m afraid that I’ll never enjoy success again and, with so many millions of people sick and tens of thousands dying from this novel virus, I feel guilty even thinking of personal goal achievement. 
• Others probably think I’m a selfish person, so I’m reluctant to tell them what I’m thinking so they won’t judge me. 
• I’m afraid for our children. What kind of world will they live in? What happens if we get sick and can’t take care of them. 
• All I can feel is fear — about everything.

This May Seem Obvious, But When Did the Fear Begin?

To overcome fear, it’s important to pinpoint when it took over and began to handicap everyday living. 

Some fears are universal, such as fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, fear about disease, dying and death. Indeed, some of what’s now identified as fear may trace back to a dysfunctional home, childhood trauma, economic disadvantage, school bullying, the presence of a physical or mental disability. 

Recognize that uncovering when and where the fear started and then focusing on the fear itself is likely to be painful. Dwelling on fear is unpleasant at best, yet getting past fear requires going through this process. 

Be Willing to Ask for Help

Identifying fear, when it began, and specifics about the fear will likely produce feelings of discomfort and frustration. That’s because there aren’t any solutions as to how to get past fear yet. 

Outside help can prove beneficial here. Psychological counseling or therapy may be appropriate, or taking part in online discussion groups and self-help forums. Literature available online on the topic of overcoming fear is another good source for help. 

Two other options for overcoming fear are meditation and prayer, both part of a spirituality practice.  

Most people are reluctant to ask for help, yet resources are available and no one should feel any stigma about asking for assistance during these troubling times. Indeed, climbing out of the pit of fear may begin with taking these first steps toward a proactive solution. 

What Are You Afraid Fear Will Prevent You from Doing?

When thinking about the future, assuming there will be restrictions on personal movement lifted, are you afraid to return to work? Does the idea of interacting with co-workers and supervisors create a rush of fear? 

What if you’ve had the virus, or been in quarantine with family members who’ve had it, are you afraid you’ll get it again? 

Are you afraid of ever getting physically close with another individual due to uncertainty over how long COVID-19 will be present, or if it will become seasonal and a pandemic that will recur? 

The point about looking at what fear may prevent you from doing isn’t how daunting the list is. It is, however, instructive to see in black and white how self-limiting fear is to daily living. Everyone wants to get life back to normal, even if that normal looks quite different than what it once was. Fear, in this respect, can be a very powerful motivator to unleash innovation, creativity, and finding new solutions to everyday problems and daily life. 

Future Planning: Create Goals

This crisis will eventually subside and things will get back to some semblance of order. Heartening research from the University of Sydney found that if 80 percent of people practiced strong social distancing, COVID-19 could be curbed in 13 weeks. Be ready with goals to tackle once that happens. These may include personal goals that have taken a backseat to others, yet now they take on greater significance. 

Whatever these goals may be, put them down on paper. This exercise provides ample material to work from in taking the next step to get past fear.

Construct Action Plans

Action plans are necessary to get moving on goals. Be sure to include a range of goals, some that are more quickly achievable, some that take a bit longer, and others that are long-term. 

In the interim, prioritize self-care, since you’ll need to be healthy to resume normal living once the pandemic subsides. Even during self-distancing, it’s possible to ensure you’re taking good care of yourself, according to suggestions from Johns Hopkins mental health experts. The list includes exercise, which helps reduce stress, anxiety and depression while also benefitting physical health.

Each type requires its own set of action plans. Without a plan to follow, there’s no roadmap to pursue the goal. Another crucial part of action plans and goals is that they’ll likely need to undergo revision. Change is part of life, and goals deemed important now may be less of a priority going forward. Live life in the present, always doing your best while remaining true to yourself and your core beliefs.

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When most people hear the term “acceptance,” they associate it with a passive state of contentment. As therapists, we know that patients can proactively harness acceptance to cope not only with everyday distress, but also unprecedented challenges, including the myriad emotional, physical, and financial hardships associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

When we use the term “acceptance” in this manner, we typically mean “radical acceptance,” a skill that originated in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Think of radical acceptance as emotional energy conservation with the added benefit of acquiring new, efficient, renewable resources. Radical acceptance helps you conserve energy that you would have spent fighting with yourself or the world over what is, and gain clarity about what you actually need and how to get it.  

Misunderstanding Acceptance

A common misconception about radical acceptance is that acceptance requires approval. It does not. Nor does radical acceptance require accepting defeat. Instead, it simply requires you to accept reality. I often remind patients that you don’t have to like a situation or a feeling to accept it. 

Protesting Reality

While protest thoughts such as “This cannot be happening!” may initially feel productive, because such thoughts make us feel as though we are in the throes of fighting an enemy, no enemy can be defeated with denial. Shaking your fists at the sky doesn’t change a situation, nor does it make you feel any better. On the contrary, repetitive protest thoughts distract you from gaining greater self-awareness, thinking of ways to solve problems and taking action.

If we are consumed and distracted by the fight over what is, we cannot grab hold of the things that we do have control over: namely, our responses to challenging circumstances. Disbelief, denial, and bargaining are all normative automatic reactions to discomfort, fear, and trauma. We engage in such thinking both in response to the internal world of our own feelings, as well as exigent external events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. An initial reaction to the crisis may therefore sound like, “This disease cannot be as contagious or lethal as they’re saying it is.” Or “This has got to end before I have to cancel my plans.” On an internal level, a protest response sounds something like, “I will not feel sad about this!” (when you are in fact feeling sad). But the more time we spend trying to fight reality, the more defeated, overwhelmed, and hopeless we feel, because denial simply cannot change reality.

Achieving Acceptance

When engaged in combat with an external threat like COVID-19, acceptance not only can dramatically reduce distress, it can literally make us safer. For example, constantly fighting against reality prevents us from practicing behaviors that reduce the risk of infection, such as social distancing. Once we accept that the crisis is happening, we are much more likely to engage in such potentially life-saving behaviors.

Acceptance is also powerful because it leads us to discover what we can control. If we let go of trying to control the world or our automatic emotional responses, we can reach more comforts and supports through adaptive thoughts.  

Imagine you’re living in a New York City apartment with a roommate you despise. Having just resolved to move out and put new plans in place, the COVID-19 crisis has erupted, bringing your plans to an abrupt halt. In that scenario, you might feel despair or helplessness. You might do nothing but ruminate on your predicament.

Now imagine you accept the limitations imposed by the situation and say, “Okay, I cannot move out right now because I don’t have control over getting a new apartment right now. I hate this situation, but what could I still do given this reality? What would my second-best option be? Would self-quarantining and then rooming with a friend be an option? Could I stay right here but be more direct with my roommate about needing more privacy and, say, wear my headphones for an unholy amount of time to achieve some semblance of distance?” Maybe so.

In these times, it is important to stop and remind ourselves of the power of our own resilience and flexibility. We have all been challenged before, and we can gain perspective and strength from those experiences by recalling how we coped, and then applying that knowledge to the present moment.

Ultimately, when we stop fighting with ourselves and the world over what is, we can exhale for a moment, collect our thoughts, and do the next right thing. Maybe it’s reading a novel, maybe it’s donating supplies to a local hospital or sharing our deepest fears with someone we trust, or maybe it’s spraying every single solitary surface in our homes with Lysol. That will all depend on what the moment requires. If we actively admit what we are struggling with, we will find the actions that can take us forward.

Below is a series of questions you can ask yourself to advance your self-awareness. If you feel you might benefit from speaking with a professional, consider reaching out to the National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI) HelpLine at 1-800-950-6264 or contact a licensed mental health professional offering telehealth counseling. 

1. Without any judgment ask yourself what you are feeling. What thoughts contribute to feeling this way?
2. Do you have a lot of fears about feeling that way? (Example: Do you feel that having this feeling makes you weak or that it will never stop? What evidence do you have to indicate a feeling determines a person’s moral character? What evidence do you have that a feeling will not pass if it’s given the chance?)
3. Can you talk about these fears or seek help in tackling them?
4. Are any of your current behaviors making this feeling more difficult to bear? (Examples can include overexposure to news updates and isolation from friends.)
5. What behaviors could you try to engage in to help alleviate this distress? (Examples may include keeping a gratitude journal, limiting news exposure, engaging in healthy distraction techniques, donating to charities and local hospitals, contacting close confidants, or calling a support hotline.)
6. Do any of your current interpersonal relationships make this feeling worse? What boundaries can you put in place to reduce that?
7. Why shouldn’t you grieve the losses that come with this unprecedented crisis? Have you even allowed yourself to grieve this situation as a loss of predictable normalcy, if nothing else, before trying to extinguish your feelings?

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