This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
A Year of #Isolation and #Connection
2020 with an update in 2024
2024 UPDATE-This was written the first year of the Pandemic. There was so much going on and there still is, above and beyond that terrible killer of a virus. It may be helpful to read and remember. Looking back now in 2024, we can still see some lasting effects. Also Covid is still around and still mutating, though we have learned a lot and we now have some vaccines to address new strains. Those of us who believe in science will most likely be getting our vaccines yearly, just as we do for flu. We face an imminent election the U.S. The war in Ukraine is raging and terrible things have happened ands continue to happen in the Middle East. We wonder what is in store for us. There is so much division, so much hatred and anger, but there is also love and connection and there are people who are involved daily in making our world and our country a better place. Connection and understanding are more important than ever.
Yet, we can’t close our eyes to the awful things around us. We have grief and yet, we also need to keep hope alive. What do you do to keep hope alive and to promote connection and understanding?
Oh what a year it has been! A year of isolation and connection–A year of too much and not enough–A year most of us will be glad to have disappear, though we may be looking at the upcoming one with some trepidation and anxiety.
A dear friend posted on Facebook the other day, “Just Stop!” She said she doesn’t know what else to do, but pray for all of the suffering people with the wildfires in multiple states now, the disasters, the storms that have caused horrendous destruction, the senseless killings on both sides of the political spectrum, the rioting, the racism and bigotry and ugly politics, the joblessness, the horrible economy..and on and on.
This friend needed a hug, I think. Of course, here we are still dealing with Covid-19 and with the isolation and changes to our daily lives. So we are not doing a whole lot of hugging, often even with family members who don’t live in the same household. I longed to give my 11 year old granddaughter a great big bear hug the last time they came by and we had a little outside visit on our deck and in our gazebo. (I would love to hug the other one too, but she is an adult living in Berkeley, CA now!)
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I am filled with sadness about pretty much everything happening, about the almost 200,000 Americans who have lost their lives and all the rest. Sometimes I am filled with rage too.
I have developed some tools for survival over my lifetime. I am proud of my skills and of my ability to use those skills and insights to help others. I mostly know how to manage my emotions well, without pushing them down so they come back with brutal force. Still, I have my down moments sometimes. Add to the mix the things happening at closer range, like people we know losing jobs, or worse, getting sick or dying, and we all have to really use our imaginations and every coping technique we know how to, in order to manage not to be pulled under a sea of turmoil and sadness. That is when we must seek more connectedness, however hard it may be, but when we frankly don’t always feel we are truly up to it.
We must also pay closer attention to good self-care during these times. It is more crucial now than ever. What are some of the things you do to take extra-good care of yourself in these tough times?
The thing I have discovered during these past six months, is that the emotions many of us have grappled with feel very much like what we feel in deep grief after we lose a loved one. There are the emotional swings, the anxiety, fears of the unknown and the future, how things seem totally out of our control and we feel helpless and as though life will never be normal again.
When we have experienced loss of one or more people close to us, and then we go through times like what we are experiencing right now, our limbic systems (the parts of the brain that deal with emotions and memory and regulate the endocrine system) “remember” what we felt after our personal losses. It is all called up again and can throw us back into very dark times, if we let it.
When we acknowledge that, begin to take better care of ourselves and to do some of the things that helped us in times of personal grief, it does help us feel better and a little more in control. Yet it is more of a challenge in our Covid world, because most of us are limited in where we can go and with the people we can safely spend in-person time. The isolation just isn’t good for grief and anxiety, though we may feel like being alone. We need more connection at this time that there is so much less for most of us.
That is why many have returned to old-fashioned letter-writing to friends and family who are not nearby and have opened up a new level of communication that way. I also urge people to make a commitment to call at least one or two people a week with whom you may not have spoken much recently, and/or to plan some socially distanced activities or outdoor visits while weather cooperates. We have discovered Zoom and other platforms to help us feel a little less isolated. That’s a good thing.
If you are someone who has the tendency to pull in and retreat when feeling sad or anxious, try hard to reach out and let one or two others you trust know this. Ask them to check in on you. It takes courage to do that, but it is a healthy thing to do. If you know someone who seems to be hibernating a little too much and not engaging, even in the limited ways we can nowadays, please reach out and stay in better touch with them. You may need to be creative about it these days, but it’s important. We NEED that connection.
In times of sadness and despair, we must look for ways to turn on small lights in the dark, for ourselves and for others.These lights are the beacons to help us see a bit of hope during our dark nights of the soul. It is sometimes hard to believe the sun is going to come up for us again, but it always does. Someone said just today, that we can watch the sun come up again together, (metaphorically). She said, “We can watch it together-in the light or in the shadows”.
It is your choice!
I am here with you. I am so glad you are part of my community.
Please stay in touch!
Fondly,
Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC, CPC
The above is part of my newsletter. I thought I would post it here, in case you are not a subscriber. I don’t usually put the same exact material on my blog and in my newsletter, though occasionally I might share items on both.
Want to subscribe to my newsletter? I don’t send out a lot of mailings, but I am trying to get better at it! I won’t overwhelm you, though, I promise.
Iris Arenson-Fuller, PCC is a Life and Loss Transformation/Life Reinvention Coach and a poet/writer.
