Hurray we succeeded in flattening the curve! Boo that same curve is taking forever to really come down.
The Situation Where We Now Find Ourselves
In the initial stages of a crisis obsessing over the news may have seemed comforting. There’s a feeling of control that you know what is going on and what just happened. However, at this point most of us feel we are riding the back of a slow turtle with no real change in the offing.
Officials are murmuring they want to reopen the economy. At the same time they warn it won’t necessarily be May. An internet joke accurately quips that March 2020 was 268 years long. So in that 268 years we stopped traveling, telecommuted, ordered groceries online, home schooled, baked stuff, and cut or colored our hair. Now we are totally sick of hiding at home being worried about well…being totally sick with this virus.
I would suggest you entertain a Virus Vacation.
You deserve a break today because the crisis will still be here when you return. I know you can’t physically go anywhere but you can certainly change your attitude since you can’t change your altitude. When you get back I promise you we will know more than today. We won’t know everything but we will know more.
The agonizing and obsessive scanning of such a slow moving problem is enough to emotionally and physically fatigue the most stalwart soul.
Solutions and Tools
- Skip the news for a week. If you withdraw temporarily your attention the world will neither fall apart or become completely mended while you are missing.
- Get outside in the Spring weather (socially distant of course) and be reminded nature is resilient and you are part of nature.
- Make yourself a special holiday dinner, light a candle, and celebrate your blessings!
- Talk to people you love about anything except the pandemic.
- Watch humorous, light-hearted, and mesmerizing television that reminds you there is more to the world than enduring a pandemic.
- Take advantage of being home to get lots of sleep and rest.
- Read uplifting or absorbing books that entertain, educate, and give you something to think about that isn’t pandemic related.
May you be well, may you be at peace, may you come out of this crisis better than you went in…
Warmly,
Dr. Skube
interpersonaledge@comcast.net