One year ago, our lives were drastically changed. What we now know as “everyday life” was said to be a two-week process in order to flatten the curve. A year later, we are still living in this very challenging situation. It has tested us in ways we could not imagine. It has tested our mental health, physical health, emotional health, financial health, relational health and our community health. If you are like me, you are exhausted. In our practice we are seeing more and more people seeking counseling and other mental health services to help them deal with this state of overwhelm.
Anniversaries can be moments of celebration but they can also be moments of painful remembrance. As we mark one year we find that we are taxed by what all the past year has brought us. If you feel burned out it is because you should. The pandemic has overwhelmed all of our capacities in different ways. You may find that you are experiencing depression and anxiety in ways you have not experienced in the past and seem stuck and unable to move out of those states. You may be struggling with issues related to food or alcohol and find that you are turning to more dysfunctional means to cope. Again, this is what so many others have been struggling with.
Feeling stuck is often a normal trauma response. Many of us have experienced various levels of “stuckness” over the past year. Trauma can be defined as too much; something that happens too soon, or happens too fast. When something is too much, we are not able to integrate the experience and respond with our normal coping mechanisms. It is more intensity than what the nervous system can handle. Too much fear, too much uncertainty, too much disconnection. It goes beyond what we have the capacity to manage and we don’t have access to enough resources or connection to help us stabilize and regulate. This is exactly what has happened for so many over the past year.
If you have felt stuck or frozen it is completely normal. We have all felt this in various degrees over the past year. We can help to mobilize these feelings and help our nervous system rebound and grow in resilience even in this situation. Take time to notice what you feel. Talk to someone. Move. Reach out for help. Find a therapist. Gentle movements are one of the best ways to try and help our system mobilize out of freeze or “stuckness”.
One constant in life is that we are faced with the unexpected time and time again. At times the unexpected is in the form of a beautiful gift you did not expect, a wonderful gesture from a friend, the chance meeting of someone who will be in your life for a long time. However, we also are deeply aware that the unexpected also brings painful visitors; being let go from a job, the loss of a loved one, a traumatic event, even a pandemic. These life crises happen to all of us. How well we do in navigating when we are faced with the unexpected often comes down to a concept known as resilience.
Resilience is often defined as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, significant sources of stress, relationship challenges, illness, tragedy, or trauma. Some have defined resilience as our ability to bounce back after these types of traumas. Resilience helps us to come out of this sense of “stuckness”. One of the most encouraging aspects of resilience is that we can actually work on it.
As we are at the year mark of the pandemic, we notice the difficulty of the past year and we also notice the ways we could be moving into change and are seeing hope. If you are noticing that you have been struggling with feeling stuck or frozen then you are like so many who are navigating this time. There are ways to help yourself move out of freeze and into more resilience. We are starting a three-part blog series focusing on just that. One of our therapists, Lisa Hunt will write about how movement can help us deepen our resilience and come into more flexibility in our nervous systems. Then we will have a post by another one of our therapists, Savanna Scott, focusing on how yoga can help children navigate these same issues. Children of course throughout the pandemic are struggling with the same issues as adults and are just as overwhelmed.
Let’s focus on what can help. We have several therapists on staff who specialize in helping navigate trauma and trauma reactions, helping to grow resilience and come out of overwhelm or shut down. Please let us know if we can be of assistance.
