Let me start by asking you a question: How are you doing?
On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = it’s hard to get out of bed - 5 = life couldn’t get any better!), how are you really doing?
From what the news and Facebook have told me, this is the year we’re finally “done” with the pandemic. Or something like that. Life will return to “normal,” and we no longer have to fear the very thing many have feared since March 2020. While I highly doubt that is the truth, I’ve heard a lot of people over the last few years say something to the effect of, “When are we going to go back to the way things were? When will life be NORMAL again?”
Unfortunately, I have some bad news for all of us. We’ll never go back to the way things were. That life that was so normal three years ago will never exist again. Instead, we are currently in the making of a “new normal.” With every drive to work (or walk across the hall to the home office), latte purchased, and conversation with our friends and family; we are in the process of creating a new normal. A normal that includes heightened sensitivity to health and new social norms of how we interact with people depending on the severity of our symptoms and the comfort level of the people around us.
So how do we create a new normal with intention? If we simply keep moving forward and don't stop to intentionally create this new normal, then we are at risk of bringing all the…shit...with us. Think of it like moving. You don't just pack all of your house's contents into boxes and then take them with you to the new house, right? Of course not! Some of that stuff brings up difficult memories, or maybe it's just junk that's been hanging around for a couple of years. Or perhaps it's traumatic, and we don't want to take those traumas into our new house.
Instead, we do a “spring” cleaning. We look around our house, look at what we want for our new house, and then purge accordingly. Do I want to take this old picture of my abusive partner with me? Nope. Do I want to take this fear and anxiety I had around conversations I've had in this house? Nope. Do I want to take all the crap that's been sitting in our storage under the stairs that haven't even been unpacked since we moved the last time? Likely not.
Before we can create a new normal that we can get excited about, we need to process what we’ve been through so that we can decide what we’d like to take forward with us.
So that’s what we’re going to do over the next month - we’re going to spend time talking about why we’re not processing the difficulties of the last few years and then how we can process those things so that we can consciously decide what this new normal could look like for us. (Sound good?)
A Quick Disclaimer
There are a lot of thoughts, opinions, and imaginations about all the things that we’ve experienced over the last few years and, let’s be honest; I’m not sure we’ve ever been as divisive as we currently are. Soooo, we’re not talking about masks or vaccinations here (or in the comments below) because we’re talking about (regardless of where you fall on those topics or any Covid-related topic) how we can PROCESS all of this. And let’s be really honest here: everyone has had differing experiences with the pandemic, and everyone will have different ways of processing it as well.
So let me ask you again - How are you doing?
The Biggest Obstacle Course
Most of us try and do everything in our power to avoid our emotions. We try to go around them, under them, over them. We see that negative feeling come our way, and we try to jump over it like we’re on the show Wipeout. We’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding our emotions; some might even call us experts by now. We have got so good at avoiding our feelings that we’ve reframed that word AVOID all together! Now, it’s called The Pursuit of Happiness, formerly known as Good Vibes.
You know exactly what I’m talking about, too; it’s this belief that no matter how dire or difficult a situation is, people should maintain a positive mindset. So when the shit hits the fan, think about the positive side! So we say things like:
It could have been worse!
You just need a little time...
Everything happens for a reason.
Look on the bright side….
When God closes a door, he opens a window.
Look at the meaning of the words above…when people aren’t happy or are having a difficult time, instead of journeying alongside those folks (when they really need someone to journey alongside them), our language tells a different story. It says - You should be ashamed of feeling those feelings…so here…let me pull you out of that darkness that you’re experiencing and into the light.
So what do we do with all of those negative thoughts? It’s really simple! Shove those thoughts under the carpet, so we don’t have to deal with them!
That comment really hurt. Shove it under the carpet. I can't believe my boss just gave me more work to do. Shove it under the carpet. I'm feeling burnt out beyond belief. Shove it under the carpet. There's a worldwide pandemic out there!!! Shove it under the carpet.
Every negative thought and feeling that comes our way; we shove under the carpet. Then one day, we make ourselves a coffee or tea, sit down on our favourite chair in the living room and frown at the mountain that’s living under our living room carpet.
Go back to March/April of 2020. Do you remember what everything felt like? It was scary! We were being peppered with information, opinions, thoughts, jeez…even people’s imaginations. We were getting all kinds of information from the news, our social media feeds, doctors and scientists, and friends that thought they were scientists…It was hard to process it all, and there was a fair amount of fear for virtually everyone in the beginning. We didn’t know what was happening and what was going to happen.
So instead of diving into those feelings, what did we do? We started making sour bread dough, doing the daily Wordle, renovating our homes, and binge-watched Tiger King like it was the next great Marvel movie. Basically, we did everything we possibly could do to avoid our feelings and thoughts.
In Canada, surveys1 have shown that 46% of Canadians indicated that their perceived stress level was somewhat or much worse than before the pandemic. Results from the survey also revealed that those living with children under 15 (54%) were much more likely to report that their stress levels had gotten worse since the start of the pandemic compared with Canadians not living with children (43%) - Surprised?
Here’s the thing, research2 has shown that stuffing our emotions does the exact opposite of what we are trying to accomplish. When we stuff those feelings under the carpet, we actually intensify those emotions. Part of it is because when we shove those emotions under the carpet, we say to our brains - DON'T THINK ABOUT THIS…. and what does our brain do? It only wants to think about it. It's like saying, “Don't hit the red button over there!"
We also know that there is a correlation between suppressing our emotions with things like depression, high blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety, digestive problems, low energy, and even physical pain. Then there’s the anger that seemingly seeps through every pore in our body that can impact our relationships.
Do you remember what emotions you were feeling in March 2020? What about April 2020?
I remember hearing rumblings of this virus thing at the middle/end of February, and, to be honest; I didn’t give it much attention. I had one thing on my mind: A family vacation in Florida over March break. The kids were excited to go on an airplane and to see their cousins while swimming in the pool in Florida. So excited that they were packed almost a week before we were scheduled to leave. Two days before the departure date, though, we cancelled the trip (following the Canadian government guidelines). The disappointment was palpable in our house. Then we found out the kids weren’t going back to school for (what we thought) a little while. Then we heard we were supposed to be washing our groceries and isolating. I won’t go through it all, but there were feelings of disappointment for the missed opportunities, there was fear - not knowing what was happening and what sources of information were reliable, there were panic-stricken attacks for the health of our kids and compromised adults in our life, there was a sadness about not being able to be with our friends and family. There was grief. Oh, so much grief.3
So, like many people, we got busy (more on that next week) doing all the things and stuffing down those fears and emotions. Then, after fielding many calls, emails, and messages from friends and readers over at TheShitClub.com, I finally stopped and realized how much of a mask I had been wearing for a couple of months. I realized I was projecting a false version of myself onto the world around me.
We all do some version of this! We wake up in the morning, mosey over to our closet and think about who or what we will be doing that day. As we sort through our collection of masks, we finally find the one that we feel will help us most that day, and off we go! My personal favourite mask is my mask of bravery. You know the one - Everything's good! Nothing to see here! I'm doing just fine! Keep walking, please.
So let me end it with this. What were you feeling in those early days of the pandemic? What was your go-to mask of choice, and what did it mean to you?
Next week, we’re going to talk about one of the other reasons that we haven’t started processing the last few years and one thing we can start doing. Then the following week, we’ll talk about how we can begin processing it with ourselves, and the week after, we’ll talk about the importance of processing with the folks around us.
Looking forward to continuing the conversation!
With gratitude,
Jason
Here’s are the rest of the posts:
This article is quite informative and links to a bunch of good resources as well for more information on this. https://caldaclinic.com/dangers-of-suppressing-emotions/
I actually wrote a whole post about how grief prepared me for a pandemic. If you’d like to check it out you can read it here: https://theshitclub.com/blog/pandemic
What were you feeling in those early days of the pandemic? What was your go-to mask of choice, and what did it mean to you?
My first feeling were, "Is this for real?" Then acceptance, then frustration. Frustration because I have a family member that got right into the conspiracy forums as well as co-workers & neighbours, each of them trying to make me feel stupid. They failed at that big time, but it was a pain in the butt trying to have normal conversations. I think people that are in denial about Covid are way more verbal about that then we are who believe that the pandemic is real. So my mask of choice which has changed over the course started with a "worry" mask, then over to acceptance about Covid and then really worried for you'all and eventually it transitioned to an "I'm done talking about this". mask. I treat everyone the same, sick with Covid or not, if you believe in Covid or not, vaccinated or not ... I feel good and cope very well and I try to encourage people who can't ...My mask now is back to "placid". It means I will survive and remain sane.