The Stress of COVID-19

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been stressful for many people. Fear and anxiety about the disease, quarantine, and the financial ramifications can be overwhelming and cause strong fears in adults and children. Some of you have contracted the disease. Some of you fear contracting the disease because of health preconditions. Some of you have jobs or own businesses in industries worst hit financially. Some of you fear for grandparents and other vulnerable loved ones. Others feel cooped up with small children and have few outlets with lockdowns on your movement. Some of you are going to work every day on the front lines as doctors, nurses, police officers, grocery store workers, and many other crucial roles. Regardless of your situation, this is impacting you and causing stress.

What is True Belonging?

Many of us go through life seeking meaning in relationships. We seek to be understood, to be accepted, to be seen for who we are without judgement. We seek love. Often, this pursuit can seem daunting as we experience situations and relationships that fall short of this ideal. True belonging is something that most of us yearn for in our families, our significant relationships, our friendships, and in our community. Simply, it is a sense that we belong. It is a sense that we are accepted and valued as we are. It is a sense that those around us are truly interested in who we are. True belonging is permission to be transparent with another about who we are beyond pretense. True belonging involves a deep-down sense that those that are offering this belonging truly understand the nature of who we are.

From childhood to adolescence, and into adulthood we seek this state of belonging. Often, it may feel like panning for gold as we sift through the sand of relationships which do not deliver this prized state of being. Some relationships become “fool’s gold” replicas that initially seem to promise the real thing and fall far short. When we experience true belonging in a relationship, we know it. We feel joy in the sense of experiencing unconditional love and a positive regard which reassures us at the core. Unfortunately, like water in the desert, many of us spend a lifetime seeking this precious resource only to find a remnant here or there that keep us moving forward in the search.

What is Underlying Shame?

Many of us walk through our days trying to survive. We’re stressed and we’re trying to cope with a multitude of pressures coming our way, while simultaneously trying to maintain an impression for others,” that everything is OK.” Meanwhile, there sits deep inside us a pervasive fear that we are not enough. A fear that we are impostors. A fear that if anyone else knew how truly insecure we were about measuring up that they would conclude that we are defective. Many of us look in the mirror and find little about our bodies that we’re satisfied with. We see ourselves as too fat, too wrinkly, too short, or too small in certain areas. We are brutal in our assessments of our self. We sometimes level scrutiny at ourselves for being too emotional, too sensitive, and potentially too vulnerable. Some of us have a pervasive fear that if we are seen as we truly are, that others will be aghast at what they see. So, we guard ourselves against the purview of others.

One thing that I enjoy about our modern world is all of the new and interesting ways we have to communicate. As the great family therapist, Murray Bowen, once said,” Communication is always happening.” But I have noticed how much one can learn and understand about family dynamics from the way and frequency in which someone shares thoughts and feelings, especially through social media.

I ask myself a question as both a therapist and a friend when I am on Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In or other forms of social media. What do these posts tell me about the person’s boundaries, or willingness to take in and give out information? I raise this question because of the extremely large number of problem conversations I have with clients, families, and friends about conflict related to social media posting.

The term boundaries is a fairly new idea, developed by psychologists, therapists, and other doctors in the 1990s to describe the interface between what separates you from the outside world. One generally has personal boundaries and relationship boundaries. Sometimes friends or loved ones may divulge information about fairly sensitive areas through social media like politics, sexuality, or money without even realizing their boundaries. If this is a concern with someone you know, how comfortable are you addressing these items in a face-to-face conversation?