Melissa led DPX on the theme of loneliness last week. Sighting that loneliness lies behind a host of problems—anxiety, violence, trauma, crime, suicide, depression, political apathy, and even political polarization. Lonely people can even feel homeless even though they had a roof over their heads. Loneliness can manifest when finding yourself among a group of people who do not know and understand you and can trigger a fight-or-flight response. We breathe fast, our heart races, our blood pressure rises, we don’t sleep. We act fearful, defensive, and self-involved, all of which drive away people who might actually want to help, and tend to stop lonely people from doing what would benefit them most: reaching out to others. Our group had a variety of responses ranging from feeling less alone knowing that everyone is going through this and that it lands in different ways for people. Having empathy for the frontline nurses and doctors seeing and experiencing collective grief. Noting that anger is a masking emotion for grief and sadness. Grief for the loss of a previous life. Feeling ostracized from friends and gratefully acknowledging how much our DPX group has helped. Feeling grateful for recovery, which helps to connect with emotions, identify them, be with them, and deal with them. Feeling waves of sadness but opening to the inquiring mind when there is space.
Fear, Doubt and Covid 19
At our Sunday Zoom meeting led by Ray, we did a happiness inducing Metta meditation for everyone in the world who is suffering from the Coronavirus including its emotional and financial trickle down. Our discussion centered around emotions of desire, anxiety, fear and doubt, and how one emotion spirals into the next. Doubt arises from fear. We doubt the best way to control a potential negative future that we are afraid of. It causes us to hold back and we get stuck in ruminating thoughts. Too much thinking and not enough action. We are afraid we are going to pay the consequences and people are going to judge us for doing it wrong. We fear that we will be separated and unloved as a result.
Remedies for this downward spiral include, being present and focusing on your breath. Labeling the emotion, saying “This is a moment of suffering.” Meeting it with kindness and without blame, self-blame, or judgement of any kind. Saying “may I be at ease” and “I care about my suffering” Rather than … “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”. Finally, asking yourself “is this useful?” Committing to mindfully trying to understand the emotion and the situation and to face it with positivity, productivity and rewardingly. Don’t obsess over unattainable targets or expectations. Goals should be realistic and attainable. If the situation cannot change, accept it as it is and turn it to an advantage.
In our group discussion Bailey talked about the difficulties of living outside her daily routine and commented that in her situation, turning it to an advantage meant learning that is ok to ask for help. Sam talked of shifting from hypervigilance to mindfulness. Mike mentioned gaining resiliency as we go through difficult times. Beth talked about using time more wisely, because we don’t know how much time we have left.
Brendan commented that “In many ways, this is no different than normal life. In normal life we have no control, ….it’s just that we have more things to distract ourselves with so we don’t have to think about it. This virus situation takes away everything we have built up and leaves us with only ourselves to observe and be with.”
Mike said “It’s a time to question how we want to show up in the world because we are all grieving together. Everyone agreed how surprisingly comforting it was to be with our community and see everyone’s faces. Even if it was through Zoom.