Being ok and not being ok in a quarantine
It’s hard to write about COVID-19 in the way that it’s difficult to write about anything nearly universal or ubiquitous – birth, death, relationships, motherhood. Certain features of our collective lives are similar but within the broad strokes, the finer details differ and are dependent on certain circumstances. I am mindful of striking the right note because it’s really ok to be not ok, even if on paper you’re privileged in these conditions, and it’s also ok to feel fine or even enjoying aspects of this, even if other people are not.
For nearly all of us, things have changed greatly in a short space of time. We don’t realise how much “normal” life anchors us until it’s gone. Nearly all of us will have an initial period of struggle. For some people, that will settle, and for others it may stay hard, and for lots of us it will flit between the two.
How are you? Overall I am ok. I am very aware that most of my “alrightness” is down to relative privilege – we are healthy and so are our loved ones, safe, warm, with enough food, we are together, we’ve taken a financial hit but we should be able pay the bills etc. Even so I’ve had some dark moments in the last weeks: sadness, fear, anxiety, overwhelm. Lots of crying and hardly any sleep. But also hope, joy, gratitude.
What about you? Do you have or have had COVID-19, or has anyone in your family? Are you over 70 or do you have an underlying health condition? Are you financially comfortable? Are you living alone and/or are you lonely? Are you a key worker or working on the front line? Is your job safe or has your business gone under? Do you have a regular veg box delivery and plenty of toilet roll? Do you have a secure and happy home? Are you trying to work, home school and look after small children? Do you have a tiny baby in a small flat? Do you have a garden and a secure internet connection? If you are the primary carer for your kids, is your partner working from home more and therefore able to help you more? Are you pregnant? Are you feeling anxious or depressed, or yo-yoing between enjoying slowing down and family time and wondering how on earth you will get through the next few months?
All things that might influence how you are feeling – in your body, in your spirit.
Thoughts do that too. A thought or piece of information (presented in a certain way, like when you read the news) sets off a chain reaction of feelings-expressed-in-the-body, sometimes subtle, sometimes tsunami. At one end of the spectrum, the safe and secure feelings of a body at peace – regular heartbeat, no clenching or jaw or contracting of shoulder muscles, happy hormones like oxytocin and endorphins being released into the body – or a body in panic – adrenaline pumping into the body, muscles contracting, heart hammering, palms sweaty (there are different physiological states for different emotions, but you get the picture).
Finding out we’re going into lockdown creates one feeling. Finding out about the incredible mobilising effort of NHS heroes, or that life is slowly getting back to normal in China, creates another. (Free journaling is so effective, I think, because it helps us get past our immediate, heavy thoughts – do try this if you’re overwhelmed.)
So thoughts and ideas can have a powerful effect, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the thoughts or facts we tell ourselves to try and feel ok won’t do much. For example, you might think “well we’re all in this together” or “other people have it much harder than me” or “it’s not forever”, but these thoughts alone may not touch the sides of your feelings of despair or anxiety.
Yoga has been so powerful for me because it restores a sense of safety in the body. A reset button. A great balancer and a great connector - of all the disparate parts of me, of me to everything else alive on earth. There came a point in my life when trying to make myself feel better through thoughts was only able to help me so much. Sometimes being told that we are safe, strong, connected or resilient cannot help us. Our body has to feel it before our brain can believe it.
That’s why breath practice helps. It’s why moving our body helps. Why hearing our thoughts and allowing emotions to be felt and move through us helps. Why cold showers, singing, rest, therapy, laughing, being held all help (wine and chocolate, in moderation, also help). They help change our state and with enough help, support, healing – god willing we all get what we need, we deserve it – we learn to struggle instead of suffer, and in between the struggling, to experience joy and peace.
Our life history, biology, immediate circumstances have an effect on how we’re feeling, but so too do other practices and ideas. Some of what has helped me is a zooming in on the present moment, right here, right now, on the things I can notice, on the terrible things that have not happened in that time, on my ability to feel a little bit better through slow, light breaths, movement or rest. Again, feeling it and finding ways to feel it, not just thinking about being present. Using affirmations about being strong until my body responds, moving into a flow state via digging manure into my garden or doing my new jigsaw puzzle (nerd alert). How do I express the feeling of this comforting focusing-in, this presence, this resilience, within my body? How do I change my state?
And also, a zooming out. It did help a little to think about historical precedents when humanity made it through tough times, about humans’ immense resourcefulness and adaptability and capacity for healing, of a pulling together and community spirit and kindness. In fact, I’m getting an oxytocin boost just writing this (feel it!) But also, how do I believe this “greater thing” narrative in my body?
The most powerful response for me comes from the idea of transcendence, a literal climbing up or beyond, or a belief in something bigger. For you that might be our ultimate connection to and need for each other, demonstrated so well in the last few weeks. It might be nature, our arrangement within the universe on this tiny planet – the way that last week the sun shone, ecosystems continued to interrelate, spring blossom ripened here in the UK. A magnitude.
Maybe you just respect and love nature or maybe you feel in some relationship with her. I have this vision of the great mother (nature, earth) and I do feel related to her, held by her. It feels significant that when the wind moves in the trees, it sounds like a conversation. That everything cycles. It is deeply comforting to me that the natural world was before me and will be after me and everyone I love.
What is transcendent for you might be some kind of God or force or power or cosmic order. It might be great poetry or art, which I have found so fortifying in the last week.
It might be a search for meaning. What can this experience teach us, individually and collectively? If we stop and let this scenario unfold in all its fear, sadness and anger, what happens? Can we find a purpose in it?
I feel these things and allow them to settle in my body. I practise with them as an idea, a bigger force.
In life sometimes the winds will blow rough. What is within, without and between us to help us weather the storm? We need each other and we need to be here right now and we need to remember what helps our bodies (and therefore our minds) and we need to remember nature and we need meaning of some kind. I sincerely hope you are finding some comfort at this time. Please let me know what that is for you, I collect comforting things! I am thinking of you.