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COVID-19 By Gay Matheson, MFT
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he idea that we can control life is a were then run off. We don’t have to run healthy people, he called them self-acfantasy. Our lives are a cacophony from tigers anymore. When we take on tualized. Their lives were full and satof twists and turns, ups and downs, gains stress today, emotions like anger and isfying and they experienced peace and and losses. Only when we accept that fear release those chemicals, we don’t contentment ongoingly. One characterthere are some things in life we have no run them off, and those chemicals cause istic they all had in common was they control over, can we begin to develop a havoc to our systems; mental, physical, believed everything in life happened strategy that can give us a sense of peace. and emotional. for a reason and that it served them. I Does this mean we have to endure terrible So what’s this got to do with COVID- shared this with a client once and she circumstances? Not at all, we have control 19? COVID-19 has caused people to be said, “I don’t believe that.” I queried her, over how we interpret events, and how we afraid and uncertain about the future. “If you did believe it, how do you think respond to them. Our choices will deter- “Oh my God, what if this happens, what you’d approach life?” She said, “I’d probmine whether we live in heaven or hell. if that happens?” I call that “future ably find the jewels in every situation.” Remember what Shakespear said, “There tripping” and that’s a guaranteed way I replied, “Perhaps you should pretend is nothing either good or bad, but think- to trigger those powerful chemicals you believe it” and we both laughed, the ing makes it so.” Our minds solution being obvious. By are amazing instruments, changing your thinking, Charles Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the problem is, most people you change your experithe species that survive, nor the most intelligent, let their minds run the show. ence of life. but the one most responsive to change.” The mind is like a wild stallion, Viktor Frank l, who it will drag you around like a wrote “Mans’ Search for ragdoll if you don’t know how to control we just talked about. When we are in Meaning,” endured years in the German it. Succumbing to the victim role is dev- survival mode, do we think clearly, can concentration camps. His mother, astatingly disempowering. we come up with creative solutions? father, brother and wife all died in the Studies have been conducted asking No, we diminish our ability to respond camps. He made a conscious study of participants to focus for just five minutes appropriately. Charles Darwin said, “It what kept peoples spirits’ buoyed, what on something that made them angry. In is not the strongest of the species that contributed to those that survived. just five minutes cortisol, adrenaline, survive, nor the most intelligent, but He determined that it was meaning. and histamine flooded the participants the one most responsive to change.” In Whether it was sharing the one crust bodies and could last up to three days, other words, those that deal with “what of bread they got in a day with a fellow poisoning their bodies and minds! is,” and come up with creative and con- prisoner, or staying up all night with a These are powerful chemicals in our structive solutions. dying friend even though there was a systems that were useful for running Abraham Maslow was a psychother- brutal day of work in the freezing cold away from a tiger (fight or flight), but apist in the last century who studied the next day. Though they were starving,
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Quorum July, 2020
