Slow and Steady Wins the Quarantine Race
Now is NOT the time to make rash decisions!
We all understand the severity of changes that this pandemic has brought into our households, with each family facing their own unique set of challenges and dynamics. Relationships are being tested and strained in a variety of different ways, all while we try to manage our individual baseline level of added stress.
With the quarantine, the notion of feeling trapped can make us especially antsy and anxious, which leads to making hasty decisions. Also, when we feel trapped, small things can tend to feel much larger than they actually are, which triggers our need to quickly find our way out of any situation.
Let’s also acknowledge that we are experiencing grief and trauma as a nation, which is quite the brute force of its own. Individually, we are grieving the expectations of what we thought our lives would be at this time or in the near future. Now, everything is so uncertain and unpredictable that we can’t make any plans without also having to accept that they may be postponed or canceled entirely.
Grief is a tricky beast in that it can cause people to act irrationally and with reckless abandon. After a grief event, a buffer zone of at least six months to a year is necessary before we can truly act from a place of rational thought and calm.
All that being said, now is NOT the time to be making any decisions that will drastically alter the course of your life, ie: divorce, moving, changing jobs, changing family size, cutting bangs, etc.
If you are feeling the need to do something like mentioned above, please take a moment to go through this sanity checklist, and make sure that this desire is coming from a grounded place, and not one of wanting to escape your household! The last thing you want to do during this time is blow up your life and have to deal with the long-term consequences of a panicked decision. So, before you do anything drastic, please…
Ask Yourself These Questions:
1. When did I truly start to feel this way?
2. Is there anything I can ACTUALLY do right now?
3. Do I have the means to change anything at the moment?
4. Can I ask for help instead?
5. Can I change one small thing each day to relieve some pressure?
6. Where do I want to be next year?
7. Would making this decision help or hurt the current situation?
8. How many people does it affect?
9. What am I not getting that I truly need?
10. Does this actually solve anything?
Once you have answered all of those questions sufficiently, it is still ideal to sleep on your decision-making process because each day brings us new information, and a different perspective. Your answers may still be the same the next day and the next day after that, and that consistency may lead you to the best course of action. Remember, slow and steady.
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Haruki Murakami: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
This complicated life that we lead is incredibly painful. Loss, grief, anger, transition…all things that cause us to stretch and grow also cause emotional discomfort. In fact, even the most beautiful experiences can feel bittersweet at times. Yet, when we try to avoid pain, we find ourselves experiencing a different type of discomfort: the sadness of a life not fully lived. As the quote says: “pain is inevitable” and that means there is no way around it. The only way is THROUGH.