COVID-19 Stress, Anxiety & Fear

We are all in times of extremes, extreme stress, extreme anxiety, extreme fear, extreme uncertainty, extreme loss, extreme pain and extreme isolation. However, it is during times of extremes we get to see what we’re really made of and we get to see what’s really inside of us. Our impulses are feeling fear, they are feeling that sense that things can change and they are changing but within the change we have the opportunity to find calm. We have the opportunity to find something strong and consistent within us. We are all in this together and we will get through it together. As I sit on my lounge and think of COVID-19 I can’t help but to think how love and fear and anger being an expression of fear is ultimately a part of a journey we’re all on.

I have been giving a lot of thought to a sense of collective trauma that we’re all going through at the moment, regardless of whether you have a secure job and you know that you’re going to be ok financially, whether or not you are in a space or place where you have to stay home and work online and whether or not your job even allows that depending on what you do. I want to recognise that there is a type of trauma we are collectively experiencing from the pain of the fragility of life that we have created. Seeing that is painful, having to address forces that feel unfair is painful. It’s what Freud called “ The Cruelty Of Fate”. There is so much we can do and so much we can do right and yet there are moments in life where we just don’t have power. As I ponder that I believe that a part of growing, a part of becoming whole, is ultimately reconciling with ourselves with the fact that the cruelty of fate does exist and finding acceptance within it. Finding ways to engage it and address it but to know that the psyche is strong and that we’ll be able to get through it.

So whilst we are all experiencing this collective trauma we are all dealing with it in our own ways. As I reflect on childhood trauma there are two things that stand out, first is fear and then is anger and we are all experiencing these two right now. For example all over the world we are seeing a shortage of toilet paper so what does that really mean? It is very clear when you look at it from a psychological perspective. People are motivated by knowing that they’re going to be ok on the very basic physiological level (food, water, shelter, sleep etc). As much as the toilet paper situation has been disheartening for a lot of us, confusing to some and amusing to others it is ultimately that deeper need to know that we are going to be ok on a base level that has driven people to act in such ways. Fear motivates us to act in ways that can be irrational. I just want to highlight that this is a stage. Working with clients that have experienced severe childhood trauma I have noticed that some of them end up more compassionate, more loving and more giving than those who have not experienced such trauma. I believe that you cannot know genuine compassion and empathy unless in some way you have been there even if it’s just symbolically. But what is often overlooked is the journey that it takes to get there and a part of the journey is transcendence i.e moving through, allowing ourselves to feel fear, allowing ourselves to feel anger. It is natural to feel this way under these circumstances. However, it is the people that get stuck in that stage of anger are the people that fill up prisons for example. Those are the people that perpetuate that anger, who perpetuate that trauma on to others, who don’t see beyond themselves. This is because anger does not allow you to see beyond yourself.

If we can use this life well i.e question what we feel, to explore it, to be willing to sit in emotions that are sometimes difficult, with a genuine desire to understand where we’re at in any given moment, we can get through this. This pandemic is an invitation for all of us to transcend, this is that opportunity for all of us to move through something that feels challenging within, possibly like a physical feeling of fear, of anger, of uncertainty. We get to move through it and on the other side if we are willing to move through it we will find love and compassion not only for ourselves but also for those around us.