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.

What are Boundaries

Boundaries are important both personally and in relationships. They are limits that we set for ourselves as individuals in terms of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in regard to how others relate to us. They protect our personal sense of individuality and sense of "self" so that we are not overrun by the demands and expectations of others. A sense of yourself as an independent person with freedoms, responsibilities, and limits is essential to engaging in a healthy relationship. In marriage, it is crucial to be a whole and complete person in order to engage in a mutually interdependent relationship with your spouse.

Understand Misconceptions about Intimacy

In the 90s movie, Jerry Maguire, Tom Cruise gives the famous line to Renée Zellweger, "you complete me" proclaiming his view about their relationship. This is an inspiring movie line and can seem like the ideal for many of us in regard to romantic love. However, believing or expecting that another human being will complete us emotionally can be an unhealthy and unrealistic expectation. A healthy marriage consists of two complete and independent adults who seek to share all of what life has to offer together. If you seek the other person to complete you, that each emotion that your spouse has must be yours too, that when your spouse is upset that you must be upset too, that it is your responsibility to make them happy, then an enmeshed relationship is the result. Marriage partners that are "too close" and completely rely on one another for their well-being have an enmeshed relationship with little room to breathe. In contrast, marriage partners that have no awareness of the other person's needs, few mutual hobbies, little time together, and little sense of emotional connectedness are on the opposite end of the spectrum in an estranged relationship.