Pandemic Anniversary Reaction – Transcription
Hi, everyone happy Tuesday! I hope your week is going well. I see the sun! I’m really excited. I’m really excited to see the snow melt. I hope you’re feeling the same way. Today I want to talk to you about the year Mark anniversary of when things shut down because of COVID as you know, it’s coming up in a couple of weeks, and I really want to just start talking about this because I am hearing from clients as well as just other people in my life that it is starting to become really overwhelming. And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re creeping up on that date and people might not realize that that date may cause an intense reaction. A lot of emotions that follow it. So I really just want to talk about it and maybe what you’re experiencing and how to deal with it.
So again, we’re coming up on that year, Mark, and I’m going to relate this to some sort of grief because I think that’s the best way to show exactly why this is the way that it is, why we’re feeling the way that we are. When you experienced grief you experienced the loss of a loved one or any, any other type of loss in your life. Usually when you creep up on that year anniversary or that date that that person had passed, it brings up a lot of emotions. It brings up a lot of memories and it takes you back to that painful, grieving process that you might’ve experienced. Now it’s important to know that this isn’t true for everyone. Some people have different ways of grieving and that’s totally fine. Everyone has their own way of doing it.
But I do find that that is pretty common, that those anniversary dates are something that brings up a lot of emotions. So we’re reaching that point when COVID started and everything shut down. You know, I’m sure you experience a lot of different losses, the loss of normalcy, the loss of safety and security, the loss of your social networks. Being able to see friends and family, there was a lot of loss as some people, the loss of a job, others, the loss of a loved one. So there were a ton of losses that we all experienced almost collectively as a world, to be honest. It’s one of those where we’re kind of all experiencing this loss and now we’re coming up on that, that Mark of a year. So similar to grief, what you might be experiencing are intense emotions, looking back at the year and kind of wondering like, wow, that was a year ago.
I can’t believe it went so fast, but also this year felt so long. Reflecting back on some negative things that might’ve happened, but also some positive things that could have happened because of it. So a lot of reflection might be going on a lot of emotions happening with that reflection as well. You might be experiencing a lot of pandemic burnout, which is a real thing right now, pandemic fatigue or burnout is a real thing. I know I talked about job burnout. I think it was last week in, so it’s kind of similar in that sense. If you want to go back to that video and check out what burnout looks like, it, you can relate it back to this as well. So people are just over it, right? You’re over not being able to see people, not having that sense of normalcy wearing masks and having to deal with the fear of getting COVID or your family members getting COVID.
So that that is just causing a lot of reactions and emotions that you might be feeling as that, that burnout, that pandemic fatigue. And I think people have kind of hit a wall and they’re struggling. So it’s important to, to, for you to be able to cope, to recognize that you’re feeling that way, recognize why am I feeling such an intense emotion right now? What’s going on with me that is causing these reactions. Am I burnt out? Am I overwhelmed? What can I do to alleviate some of this stress and this burnout figure out what kind of things are happening in your life that may be causing stress and how you can help get rid of that stress or manage it at least to a certain extent. And it’s also okay to feel overwhelmed. You know, it’s okay to not have all of it together.
I’ve, I’m hearing a lot of people feeling almost guilty that it’s been a year and they still are struggling. This is something that we’ve never seen before. So it’s okay if you don’t have it all together, I don’t think anyone has it altogether to be honest. So it’s okay to feel that way and to feel that sense of like loss of control that you might be experiencing, the main important things that you want to be able to do is again, experience those feelings, feel those feelings don’t push them under the rug because they’re going to come up at some point, make sure you’re experiencing that. Similar to if you lose somebody and you hit that year anniversary, do some reflection on your own of what this year meant. There is a book called the sixth stage of grief, and that is a really good book in terms of like dealing with loss.
And it tells you, you know, there’s the five stages of grief that we all know. But there’s this six stage of finding meaning. And when you find meaning, it can make the experience a little bit more hopeful and positive. So find meaning in this year, you know, obviously there’s been a lot of losses, but what have you gained? What have you been able to accomplish? How have you been able to prove to yourself that you’re stronger than you, maybe you thought you were because you were able to make it through this year, try to think of those positives and find that meaning again, take care of yourself, make sure you’re eating. Okay. Make sure that you’re exercising. If you can. I know it’s getting a little bit warmer out, so I think we’re all excited to be able to be outside again and not experience this cold weather if you’re in the Chicago area, like I am.
So do things that you do to help yourself those self-care items that I’ve talked about before that you, you typically know and talk to people too, because a lot of people are experiencing the same things and it’s helpful sometimes to have those conversations of, you know, am I alone in this? Probably not. So let me reach out to my social supports and see if they’re experiencing any of this and how we can help each other. So hopefully this helps. I will probably talk about this again before we hit that year, Mark, which is in a couple of weeks. And hopefully you can all just take care of yourselves and be patient and kind to yourself. That is the number one priority is be kind to yourself because this is very, very, I know this is cliché unprecedented times and we don’t really know what we’re doing. So one step at a time, one day at a time, one hour at a time, if you need to, and I will see you all next week. Thanks.