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What a few weeks it has been! With many of us being forced to abandon our routine, stay at home and with all upcoming plans being cancelled, it is normal that feelings of sadness, disappointment, frustration, anxiety, or anger will come up. Here are some ideas that might help you cope during this unprecedented time.

Acknowledge and open up to what you are feeling

This sounds basic but it’s oh so important. Often when we experience an unpleasant feeling we immediately try to get rid of it. Sometimes this can work, but often it can result in an unnecessary struggle with the feeling which can lead to a cascade of even more unpleasant feelings. For example, if we feel disappointed about a cancelled vacation our mind might try to get rid of the feeling by beating ourselves up, “look how lucky you are, you are healthy! Thousands of people are struggling more than you right now, what is wrong with you, it’s just a vacation!” Now we have guilt about our disappointment. Our mind might continue to struggle to try and get rid of the feeling, it might say ‘you are never able to look on the bright side, you are so negative, you will always be this way!” Now we have sadness about our guilt about our disappointment.

Instead when you notice yourself struggling with a feeling, try simply acknowledging how you feel. You could calmly say to yourself, “I notice a feeling of disappointment”, or “I notice a feeling of frustration”. Headspace is a meditation app that is now offering free guided mediations during the COVID-19 crisis which is a great way to help drop the struggle with unpleasant feelings. For more information click here.

Another way we can drop the struggle with unpleasant emotions is by practicing self-compassion. A good first step is asking yourself what would you say to a friend who was going through something similar. For example, if you had a friend who was disappointed about a cancelled vacation, would you say “what’s wrong with you?” or would you say “that sounds really hard, it makes sense that you would be disappointed, you were really looking forward to this .” For more resources on self-compassion check out my blog post on the topic here. This is a difficult time for everyone, being kind to ourselves is needed now more than ever.

Focus on what is in your control

After we acknowledge and open up to our feelings, it can be helpful to focus on what is in our control right now. We cannot control what others do, and we cannot control the virus itself. We can follow health guidelines about physical distancing and washing our hands. While this can seem small, the effect it can have on slowing down the spread is HUGE. Psychologist Dr. Steven Hayes wrote a great article on how all of us have the potential to be everyday heroes. You can read this article here.

Connect to your values

In times of uncertainty it can be helpful to outline what it is that is important to you. One way to do this is to imagine yourself 1 year from now looking back on this difficult time. How do you most wish you treated yourself, your friends, your family, and other people? Maybe you wished you were kind, and caring to yourself and those around you. Maybe you hoped to make those around you laugh, and have fun during this difficult time. Maybe you wished you were courageous and helpful to those in your community. There is no right or wrong answer here. Once you’ve identified some values, you could try picking one each day, and doing some small action in line with this value. If you do try this out, notice how you feel afterwards.

Additional Resources

Self-Care Kit for Children: this definitely is a stressful time for parents! While all us childless adults are spending time doing yoga or trying out new hobbies, parents of young kids are required to be on 24/7 without the break of school or day care. If your child is experiencing anxiety related to COVID-19 this is a self-care kit for children created by Dr Kathryn Holden, a psychologist from England. Click here.

FACE COVID: Here is a youtube video created by psychotherapist Dr. Russ Harris on how to handle COVID-19 using principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Some of the ideas from this article were taken from here, check it out.

Free Yale Course on the Science of Wellbeing: One of Yale’s most popular psychology courses is now being offered for free. The course looks at empirically supported tools to enhance wellbeing and teaches you how to bring these tools into your day-to-day life. If you are someone that has a lot more time on your hands this could be helpful. Click here.

Do you find that your mind often compares you to others? Tells you that you are not as good as those around you? That you don’t have the best job, or you are not as kind, smart, funny, pretty, or courageous as the other people in your life? Does your mind beat you up a lot about that? I know mine sure does! Our minds are social comparison machines.

Our Caveman Mind

Have you ever thought about why your mind might be doing that? Turns out, it’s most likely just trying to protect you. When looking back at how humans have evolved, one of the reasons we were so effective as a species was not because we were the biggest or strongest animals out there, it was our ability to work together. To form a tribe. Being part of a tribe was critical for our survival. The humans that didn’t care about what others thought of them and didn’t care about being part of the group, well guess what happened to them? They became lion dinner. 

Basically, the humans that cared the most about what others thought of them, were less likely to be kicked out of the group, and were therefore more likely to survive and pass their genes on to future generations. Our minds have evolved to be social comparison machines! In fact, today, social anxiety disorder (a pervasive fear of being judged by others) is the most common of all the anxiety disorders. 

The Newer Social Comparison Machine

A cruel thing about the time we are living in, is that not only do we have a social comparison machine between our ears due to evolution, but we also tend to carry one around with us all day. Our phones! I want to preface this by saying that I think today is the best time to be alive as a species. I’ll take the perils of social media over fighting lions any day. However, it is important to reflect on what exactly is happening to us right now, and maybe why so many of us struggle. We carry around these devices that give us an endless stream of images of our friends doing cool things… vacations, promotions, opening businesses, having children, getting married, you name it. This can kick our social comparison machine mind into overdrive… everyone is succeeding, I am not doing enough, I’m not as successful, what’s wrong with me! The answer is, there is nothing wrong with you! You are not alone. We are all comparing ourselves to others to see how we are matching up, this is how we have evolved. Deep down, what your mind is really saying is… don’t kick me out of the tribe please! Don’t make me lion dinner! 

What Do We Do?

From the model I am trained in as a therapist (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, also known as ACT, pronounced one word) we don’t try to stop these thoughts, you can’t really, they are there for good reason. In fact, there is a growing body of research arguing that the more you try to stop your thoughts, the worse it gets (more on that later). Instead, we use unhooking skills (also known as mindfulness skills) to change our relationship with our thoughts. How do we do that? There are 3 steps; notice, name, and normalize your thoughts. 

1. Notice it: the first step is to notice what your mind is doing. You could say to yourself, I am having a lot of thoughts right now about not being good enough, that others are better than me. 
2. Name it: you could call it the social comparison machine, or even make another name for it, like ‘AHA, there’s that caveman mind!’
3. Normalize it: remind yourself that it is NORMAL, that you are not alone, that everyone else is doing the same thing, that your mind is just doing what it has evolved to do. You could even say to yourself, thanks mind! Thanks for trying to protect me from getting kicked out of the tribe!

Now this won’t make the social comparison machine go away, it will keep coming back, but by practicing these skills the idea is that you slowly learn to welcome it as a friend, rather than see it as the enemy. Over time, this can make everything a whole lot easier.  

Mindfulness has been a buzz word in the mental health field for a while now. I think many people have misconceptions about what it is. For good reason, as there is no one agreed upon definition!

From the therapeutic approach I am trained in (known as ACT), mindfulness is defined as paying attention to what is unfolding in the present moment with flexibility, openness, curiosity, and kindness.

That’s it you say? Okay, but what does that really mean?

Let’s try a little experiment….

I want you to take a moment, and notice, what thoughts are popping into your head right now? You may say to yourself, I am having a thought about what am I going to have for dinner, or I am having the thought that I am not going to understand this post, or I am having a thought about something stupid I said to Bob the other day. That, is a moment of mindfulness. You are noticing what is unfolding in the present moment.

Now, let’s try something different… I want you to bring your attention to your feet. If you can, gently push your feet into the floor, notice the sensations around your feet. That, is also a moment of mindfulness. You are noticing what is unfolding in the present moment.

Now, look around the room, and notice 5 things you can see….. now take note of 2 things you can hear. That, is also a moment of mindfulness.

The Stage Show Metaphor

In ACT we say that from our direct experience the world is like a stage show, and on that stage are all your thoughts, your feelings, and everything you can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Whenever you stop and notice any one of those things, or notice them all at the same time, you are being mindful.

I think a common misconception with mindfulness is that in order to be in the present moment, your mind has to be completely quiet (i.e. you must have no thoughts). As soon as we have a thought, we conclude that we are somehow “failing at mindfulness” or “mindfulness does not work for me”. This is not the goal of mindfulness. In fact, your mind is never going to stop generating thoughts because that is what minds do! As soon as you notice the thought, and say to yourself I am having the thought_____ or even better, I notice I am having the thought______, that is a moment of mindfulness!

Mindfulness can be a formal practice (known as meditation) but can also be informal, as we just did above.

The Mind as a Masterful Storyteller

Okay… some of you might still be saying, well what is the point of all this? The point is that mindfulness can be a very useful tool when we are getting pulled in every direction by our thoughts. You see, minds are very good at telling us stories. By “stories” I do not mean that our thoughts are false, I mean that thoughts are simply words and pictures going through our minds. Sometimes it is helpful to listen to these stories…. a car is coming, jump out of the way!!! Other times, these stories are not as helpful… I always screw up, I never do anything right, maybe there is no point in even trying. When we practice mindfulness, we get better and better at unhooking from the unhelpful stories.

More blog posts to follow on this topic.

For now, try experimenting by bringing in moments of mindfulness to your day. Check in at different points in the day, what am I feeling? What am I thinking? What can I see, hear, taste, smell, and touch? Chances are you have already done so but may not have known it was “mindfulness”.