Continuing to Cope in Quarantine

Winter is Coming

The last few weeks I’ve heard concerns from clients and those in my personal life alike about facing quarantine in the colder, darker months. We know we managed summer by getting outdoors and maybe even doing socially distanced picnic gatherings with friends. With shorter and colder days coming, the future looks bleak. The election is coming up and political news continues to deliver sad news. How can we best prepare for the future when it looks so grim?

Stop Fighting Your Emotions

Normally as a practical and active therapist I’d offer some sort of solution. In this instance I’m asking you to meet yourself where you’re at. Are you depressed? Are you anxious? Are you feeling hopeless? Let’s first try to accept and hold that feeling before we do anything else. Why? Because it’s valid. There are winters in life and this may be a bad one for many of us, but we cannot fully enjoy the summers of life without fully sitting in our winters. You don’t have to like it. You may hate it, but first meet yourself where you’re at and accept whatever feelings you have about the ongoing state of things. 

Be Proactive & Attune

Make a plan to help get you through. Are you someone who needs structure? Create a routine and stick to it. Do you know you’ll experience depression if you don’t see as much sunlight? Consider reworking your schedule around so you can get in more morning hours of daylight. Do you feel lonely and isolated? Create a weekly schedule of social activities (even if virtual) to remain connected. These are all proactive ways to attune to yourself before things get too challenging. 

Make Lemonade Out of Lemons

Reframe this strange period in time. If you’re anything like me, when I had winter break in college it was always such a weird period. I felt off and a bit disconnected from reality, but at the same time I had a pocket of time to do things I normally wouldn’t have had time for. I worked on screenwriting, played video games I hadn’t played in a while, read tons of books and ultimately got more into hobbies than ever before. Life is vast! There is so much to do other than go out with friends or go to the office. Tap into creativity and use this time to your advantage. Maybe you’ve been wanting to write a novel. Or perhaps you’ve been meaning to reorganize your living space. Life was busy before the pandemic and while so much has been taken away from us, for some of us there are still many trade offs to seize. 

I’m not going to say happiness is a choice. I don’t believe that. I think this year has been relentlessly brutal for a plethora of reasons. I think this year is challenging us to really just cope and hang in there. So hang in there. Meet yourself where you’re at. Winter cannot last forever.