Do you ever feel like hiding in a dark closet or staying in bed with the covers pulled over your head? Whether you admit it or not, we have all experienced the feeling of wanting to be invisible, at least for a while until we can regain our courage.
Over the years, we have learned to expect good times and bad times in our lives. When I was young, my family taught me to plan for that rainy day that was tossed around a lot by adult members in my family. I was never quite sure what the saying meant until I grew up and became a man. Initially, I thought it meant having several reliable umbrellas in my possession at all times, a pair of nice rain boots, and a raincoat. Once I became a man, it all changed. I believed that it meant to save enough funds in case the economy crashes. I learned that it’s essential to pay your rent or mortgage and have food and water for survival. Today, I realise that these were ideas jumping out of the mysterious bag called fear.
The year 2019 provided all the warning signs that 2020 would be a bumpy ride. Like many people, I was moving too fast to notice any of the flashing lights to alert me. I was full of the excitement of ending work that I had been doing for the past two years, selling my condo, and preparing to move to a new country where my partner was waiting for me. If anyone had suggested that this year would feel like a slap in the face, I would have laughed and walked away. Today, I wish that someone would have warned me with sirens and flashing lights to prepare myself for significant life changes.
Today, I learned a new word, Acedia. Jonathan Zecher, a Research fellow at Australian Catholic University, wrote an article called Acedia that breaks down the emotions and feelings that we are all experiencing today. Acedia is the lost name for the emotions we are all feeling. He shares insight into how it feels to be in rebooted lockdown conditions and movement restricted everywhere. Many of us feel totally trapped in our homes. Earlier this year I was thrilled to host cocktail parties, coffee chats and tea time with friends on Zoom. Zecher’s article reminded me how the Zoom calls have lost their novelty. Acedia is anxiety, listlessness, isolation, uncertainty, and a barrage of bad news that may lead to depression.
Emotional fragility is a new emotion for me. I have always been the type of person to deal with difficult situations and move forward, always ready for what’s next. For some reason, this has been a year of dealing with worry, anxiety, and bouts of sadness leading towards self-critiquing and depression. Changing one’s lifestyle and surroundings is extremely stressful but being thrown into lockdown with curfews during COVID-19 has been a nightmare. I suffer greatly from not being able to plan, giving me the feeling of having nothing to look forward to in life. Remember don't mistake an emotion for the problem.
Everyday has been an exercise in stepping up and reminding myself that I have the strength to survive. A colleague told me that we are meant to be here if we are here today, so it’s time to call on our best selves. We all have many triggers that may cause an emotional stumble. My fall started with hearing that 3 of my dearest friends are very ill and fighting for their lives, one of them passed away in her sleep from heart failure. Although I stay In close contact with my friends, sometimes a few days may pass before noticing that we haven’t chatted. That’s when certain emotions ignite fear. Losing my connection, even for a couple of days drifted into anxiety.
One of the lessons I have learned is to allow myself to be vulnerable, the willingness to do something with no guarantees. Of course, this is everything that I have worked against my entire life. I always believed that being vulnerable would be admitting that I was a weak person. It’s the opposite. As humans, we tend to numb anything associated with being vulnerable. For example, when we are waiting on our doctor to report back to us about a test that may tell us that something important about our health, or, after interviewing for a job we want more than anything. Still, we numb our emotions to feel nothing at all so that we are ready to receive bad news.
So, what are some of the things that we do to numb the pain? Here are a few actions that we take to numb perceived negative situations:
Over eating or becoming obese
Getting in debt by shopping for things we don’t need
Using alcohol to feel less pain
Drug addiction
Blaming others instead of taking responsibility for our actions
These actions work, but they can also deaden positive emotions, such as, joy, gratitude and happiness. Developing a better relationship with our emotions are key. Whenever we are in negative situations, feeling the need to fight or take flight, it trains the brain to see emotions that we are feeling as something dangerous. We must learn to start trusting ourselves. I am learning that emotions are not the problems to avoid in life. Emotions are signals that tell us that something is wrong and needs to be addressed. For example, fear isn’t a problem, it’s simply a message from our brain that something in our life is dangerous or not working. Sadness is not a problem, it’s a message from our brain that we have lost something valuable. The same goes for anger, it’s not the problem, but the brain thinks that something in your life is unjust. We must stop treating every emotion as the problem and start dealing with it.
More than ever, I am fully aware there is no returning to what we once called normal. When I think long and hard about even a year ago and being normal, I start to frown because it wasn’t that great. The one thing that COVID-19 has done is prepared me for whatever is next. I am aware that I can’t predict the future, but I am more aware of possibilities with lessons learnt. No one likes wearing masks, but if it reduces the number of infections, I will wear one for the rest of my life because it’s not just about me, but it’s protection for everyone, especially those that I love.
So how do we gain emotional balance? According to Heart Math, “As you bring your physical, mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment, you begin to experience increased access to your heart’s intuitive guidance. Tuning into your heart’s wisdom creates a profound shift within that helps you approach situations with more emotional balance, compassion, clarity and personal confidence.
Being vulnerable is the courage to be imperfect although we were been taught to strive for perfection most of our lives. To learn more about vulnerability, listen to Dr. Brené Brown’s TED talk on the topic. She is a research professor at the University of Houston where she holds the Huffington Foundation. Dr. Brown is an amazing speaker that will make you smile a lot. Dr. Brown says, "Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it's having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome."
So, how do we stay sane and in touch with our emotions? I remain true to my daily rituals, but I view them very differently today. I start each day with mindful meditations, walking on nice days to my neighbourhood park where I can enjoy the beauty of nature and committing to routine exercise. It helps to start your day by looking in the mirror and saying I love you. Most people never share the love with themselves. I love myself acknowledges that I am enough, no longer allowing voices to whisper, you are not worthy. We are all enough, it's just being able to accept it. My initial mistake was that each of these things would make me happy no matter what. Today, I no longer look at emotions as the problem. When I started to grieve about the loss of friends, I pulled away from my daily routine which didn’t help. But today I feel heart strong with new vision. As my friend Claudius Johnson, LCSW and CEO of Sankofa Holistic Counseling Services says, “Enough pressure will burst any pipe.” The key is identifying the differences between the emotion and the problem. So let's fix the pipe.
So how do you deal with your emotions? What keeps you sane?
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