How’s it going, Late Bloomers? Are you staying sheltered in place? Did you finally find a mask that fits? Are you maintaining a sufficiently social distance while you protest? Do your grandkids understand why you don’t want to hug them anymore?
No doubt the year 2020 will occupy many chapters in future history texts, boring students with stories of hardship, suffering, and upheaval. A particularly disheartening detail will be the results of a recent survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago showing a troubling increase in unhappiness among American adults. What’s worse, most of the responses to that survey were collected prior to the killing of George Floyd by police and the subsequent spate of worldwide protests. Those happiness stats have very likely dropped even lower since then.
Is there a way to find contentment and joy amidst this mayhem? Can our Late Bloomer life skills help us through this incredibly tumultuous and scary time?
Yes, and yes.
First, it’s important to understand why so many of us are currently unhappy. Don’t forget how humans reflexively react to perceived threats. We fight, we flee, or we freeze. That fear response is a “dumb” response, one that occurs quickly and without the benefit of any cognitive consideration (think Trump’s tweets). That’s fine and dandy for a bear attack. But it sucks for handling the prolonged stresses of our modern, overcrowded, hyper-complicated world, especially when we add social distancing and cultural upheaval to the mix. That kind of protracted stress tends to trigger our generally ineffective emotional responses, including frustration, sadness, worry, regret, anxiety, and depression, all of which prompt Ego – that vigilant protector of self and defender against all things unpleasant – to leap to our rescue.
Take a look at your current circumstances. Has your Ego implemented any of its favorite soothing strategies? How about an increased indulgence in sensory distractions, like alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, or ice cream? What about loneliness, lethargy, or a lack of motivation, especially for basic daily tasks like cooking, cleaning, laundry, or personal hygiene? Quick, take a look around – any socks on the floor?
Bottom line: we suck at managing our emotions while under prolonged stress. What we need are some effective strategies that will calm our nervous system and mitigate our hormonal stress responses. We need some activities or techniques that will help us better weather the current storm of rampant disease and cultural disorder.
Here are a few life skills that might be worth trying if your joy quotient has dropped significantly in recent weeks.
Maintain Healthy Routines. Humans are creatures of habit. We have evolved an exemplary ability to form habits and routines, which allows us to master and automate many of our most important tasks. Routines, in particular, help to relieve the stress of having to maintain a mental to-do list. Routines help us maintain a healthy sleep-wake cycle, which in turn supports our internal biological clock. They also help us prioritize important activities in our lives, such as exercise, eating, and maintaining social contacts. As you might have noticed during the past few months, changes in our social interactions have disrupted many of our daily routines. People increasingly complain about a lack of sleep, neglected personal and home maintenance, missed work deadlines, and an inability to exercise or even walk outside. All of those disruptions can tax people’s ability to stay positive and happy.
Try this. While it’s definitely important to re-establish regular routines for all of the areas mentioned above – eating, exercising, working, socializing, and even relaxing – one of the most important routines is your morning routine. The habits you reinforce at the beginning of each day can determine your emotional trajectory for that day. If you wake up each day growling a profanity and smacking the snooze button on your alarm, your chances for positive outcomes diminish. Conversely, if you wake each morning with a practiced routine grounded in mindfulness and gratitude, your chances of riding a wave of positivity to the next evening increase dramatically.
If you’re interested in learning how to start tweaking your habitual patterns by implementing a simple morning routine, please enter your email addresshere and receive a free copy of “A Morning Routine for Late Bloomers.”
Mindful Acceptance. Intentionally accepting circumstances just as they are, here and now, can be your most reliable tool to neutralize Ego’s efforts to soothe emotional pain. Regularly acknowledging and accepting your situation, either through a daily formal meditation practice or by pausing to breathe and appreciate life periodically throughout your day – preferably both – can dilute many of your Egoic coping mechanisms. Prolonged periods of stress are uncomfortable, and our unconscious impulse is always to avoid and resist discomfort. We can dilute that impulse by becoming aware of our perceptions and feelings and calmly acknowledging and accepting them. Add to that the power of gratitude – for life in all its manifestations, good, bad, happy, and sad – and you have a formula for reversing your emotional descent.
Try this. Sit down comfortably for a moment and close your eyes. Take 2 or 3 deep breaths – through your nose if possible, filling your belly each time. Then, listen for just a moment to whatever sounds arise around you. Do you hear a bird singing or wind blowing or a dog barking? Do you hear the hum of a heater or the flush of a toilet or the engine of a passing car? Next, open your eyes and notice whatever falls within your field of vision. Do you see a wall or a bookshelf? Do you see a street or the sky or a hill? Just look and take note of whatever your eyes encounter. Finally, close your eyes again and spend a couple of moments paying attention to any sensations you feel in your body. Notice any itches, aches, or tingles? Notice any heat or cold?
That’s it! Open your eyes and mentally repeat a statement of acceptance. I usually think to myself: “it is what it is and it’s all fine,” but feel free to be as creative as you like. One of my kids thinks, “all good” – another, “whatever.” The point is to briefly notice and accept your present reality in order to better accept the upcoming events of your life as they unfold. That whole activity takes less than 5 minutes – less time than a visit to the bathroom. Try it whenever you feel “wound up.” If nothing else, the slow, deep breathing will lower your heart rate and blood pressure, which can’t help but calm your emotions.
Go Easy on Yourself. Our evolved survival skills have left us with several psychological remnants, including a negative bias that infests our inner dialogue. That encounter with your “asshole” neighbor who refuses to wear a mask made you feel like “shit.” Or, figuring out how to find toilet paper is “too hard for me” and I’m sure I’ll “screw it up like always.” This period of turmoil and uncertainty has sparked in many of us the most common types of negative inner dialogue – sometimes called cognitive distortions – including catastrophizing (“I know I’m going to be fired”), overgeneralizing (“all Republicans are racists”), emotional reasoning (“I feel overwhelmed, therefore I should quit”), should statements (“I should be braver” or “I shouldn’t be so scared”), and labeling (“he’s a pig” or “I’m an idiot”).
Try this. Watch for your negative self-talk and, if you notice any, take a breath, smile, and try to rewrite your internal script with a kinder slant. Instead of the catastrophic “I’m going to be fired for sure,” try “mistakes happen.” Instead of the overgeneralized “I always blow it,” try “it’s worth a shot.” And anytime you notice the word “should,” remember not to “should on yourself.” Most importantly, be kind to yourself, your loved ones, your neighbors, and even those rotten Republicans or demented Democrats.
Did you find this article helpful? Feel free to comment below and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. And, if you haven’t already done so, please add your name to my email list here – I send out a weekly email updating all my Late Bloomers regarding the latest Delayed Onset Living strategies.
You got this!