Hey everyone, it's Dr Angela here.
I read an article that came through my Facebook feed a couple of days ago and it just made so much sense to me that I wanted to talk to you about it, to tell you a little bit about it and see if you might gain some benefit from it the way I did. It was an article written in the Harvard business review and it was an interview by a man named David Kessler who actually worked really closely with Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. If you don't know who she is, she was the one who discovered the five stages of grief. Mr Kessler worked very closely with Dr Kübler-Ross. He actually ended up, after she passed away, getting permission from her family to add on a sixth stage of grief, which we'll talk about in a minute. What they talked about is that what we are experiencing now - and it could be described as grief.
That made so much sense to me. Like, think about it, you you are not able to go to work. Many of us aren't able to go to work. So we are sort of clustered here at home. We're not in our usual routines. We're feeling that loss. We're feeling that loss of our routine. You aren't able to go to restaurants or you're not able to go over to friends' houses. You're not able to socialize the way you usually do. That's a loss! There's grief there!
You might be feeling a loss of safety and security, of financial loss. That's loss! You might be feeling what's called anticipatory grief, which is which is grief that you're anticipating in the future. So for example, like you don't know what's going to happen next - who do you love who might end up getting Covid-19? Is anybody that you know or love gonna die? So there's that anticipatory grief.
The interesting thing about what's going on right now is that we're all going through this! At the same time! Think back to when hurricane Katrina hit new Orleans and Southern Texas. The people who live there were dealing with their loss and their grief. The rest of us in the rest of the world - rest of the part of the country, we were sympathetic and empathetic, but we weren't experiencing that loss at the same time. This is a different situation because we, the entire world right now, are caught up in this pandemic of Covid-19, and we are all experiencing a collective sense of insecurity and loss and grief and anxiety about the future!
So what can we do? What can we do to help ourselves feel better through all of this? The first thing that you can do is to just recognize that naming it as grief can be very, very helpful because if you understand the stages of grief, you can understand better what you're going through. So here are the stages of grief.
First is denial. So in the beginning, there was a lot of denial here in the States for sure. Was this going on in China and this was going on in the far East. And then it was Italy, but it hadn't hit here yet! Well - now it's here, so we can't really be in denial anymore. It's here. But denial is one of those things. Like 'this isn't gonna affect me. I'm, I'm going to be fine' denial.
The second stage of grief is anger. You might find yourself feeling angry at times - angry at the unfairness that maybe you were laid off, or maybe there is unfairness going on as far as your concern about having to stay home instead of being able to get to do what you want to do. I'm sure the Olympic athletes are not happy at all because they're not going to get to compete in the Olympics this year and they've been training all this time. So there's anger.
The next stage is bargaining. So, okay, 'if I stay in my house for two weeks and do exactly what you say, maybe it's going to be three weeks, maybe it's going to be four weeks. If I just do what you tell me to do, everything's going to be okay. Right?' That's bargaining.
And then there's sadness. So I was talking with a woman this morning - we had a virtual visit and she was telling me how sad her daughter was because her daughter is a senior in high school and isn't going to get to graduate. So there's sadness. I know I felt a lot of sadness because my mother just had her 90th birthday and we couldn't have a birthday party for her. We did the next best thing. We had it online, but it was sad that we couldn't have her party to altogether.
The next stage of grief is acceptance. And that's where you just said, 'okay, you know, this is the way it's gonna be and how am I going to manage it?' And you start thinking about ways that you're going manage it. And you move through acceptance.
Then the next, the sixth stage of grief that got added on after Dr Kübler-Ross passed away is meaning. How can I make meaning of this? How do I make meaning of this grief? So for example, I have seen a lot on my Facebook feed of people who have been making meaning of this. Noticing how much more compassionate we are, and noticing things like the video that came through just today - its another one of those videos of people making music on their balconies and the whole community sort of chipping in to sing! And it's just wonderful!
People are posting pictures of various cities and how the air is getting cleaner as we're not moving around so much. So there's a lot of meaning to be made in this. And so you might find that you might be feeling high sometimes when you are in the acceptance and meaning stages, and you might be crashing low! These stages are not necessarily linear. So be aware of that.
What do you do if anticipatory grief takes over and you're just really, really scared about the future? Here's what you're going to do. You're going to move yourself to the present moment. The present moment. What's going on right now, and you use your senses to do that.
So you look around you and you pick five things that you can see. What are five things that you can see? I can see a chair, I can see a lamp, I can see my computer, I can see my camera, I can see a light.
What are five things that you can hear? Maybe there's a plane going overhead or a dog barking in the background or some people talking.
What are five things that you can feel?
Okay, so you just take your senses like that. Can you feel your breath moving in and out of your lungs? Slow the breath down, count it. Realize that in this moment you’re OK. You have food, and shelter! Bring yourself to the present moment and think about those things that you have control over. So you don't have control over the stock market. You don't have control over how fast Covid-19 spreads. You don't have control over your neighbor. You don't have control over that person in the grocery store.
But what you do have control over is staying six feet away from other people and washing your hands really regularly. You have control over what goes in your mouth. You have control over what you eat, okay? You have control over how much sleep you're getting. You have control over whether or not you're exercising. You have control for how much news you choose to watch! So take control of the things that you have control with each day. One day at a time. What do I have control over today? What do I have control over today? What decisions can I make today - that are going to serve me today?
Be compassionate with others – grief can show itself in irritability, general snarkiness, anger. Normal behavior patterns can shift.
And that's how you do this one at a time. Allow yourself to feel your emotions. So when you notice that you're feeling angry, don't try to stuff it with food. Allow yourself to feel that anger. Give yourself five or 10 minutes to let that anger move through you. It's not going to go away if you just stuff it in, and it's not going to multiply if you just allow it to be. If you feel sad, allow yourself to feel sad - let the sadness move through you and it will, and then go do something that you have control over. Emotions need motion!
That's how you make it through - one day at a time. This will be over next year at this time. Hopefully there will be a vaccine. We'll be looking back on all of this and we'll be thinking, 'wow, I can't believe we made it through that!'.
These are unprecedented times and it will get better. I can promise you that!
But in the meantime, you want to keep control over what you have control over. Stay in the present moment. Make sure you're feeding yourself really, really good, healthy foods so that your immune system is up to par.
And that's all for today. Okay, y'all take care! Have a great day.
Bye. Bye.
To your health!
Angela
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