Any global crisis is associated with a heightened sense of anxiety, concern for the future and excitement that prolonged efforts will not lead to the desired result. The words that everyone is the smith of their own happiness and has what they deserve begin to put even more pressure on those who are vulnerable. If in difficult times you find yourself outside the safety zone, then supposedly you did not try hard enough. We are figuring out how to get rid of this burden.
Give yourself a discount
What to do: Analyze your own shortcomings and problems that arise every day.
An effective way to calm down in an acute situation is to treat yourself with compassion and mercy: this is why psychotherapists advise treating yourself as a loved one - feeling sorry for him, empathizing and respecting. No "You yourself are to blame for everything!", "What did you want?" and "It couldn't have happened otherwise!" The fundamental point is to accept situations over which you have no control. It is important to understand the limitations and conditions in which you exist - especially when it comes to privileges and ways of achieving goals.
For example, it is always more difficult for a person with a chronic disease than for a healthy person - a medical condition not only complicates life, but also affects costs. A person with family responsibilities does not live like an independent loner. A person with savings from relatives is not like someone who needs to survive from month to month. To give yourself a discount, evaluate the conditions that made life difficult for you. How did you grow? How did you find your life's work? Why and when did you choose a job? What is your parental and own family? Do you have your own home? Are there any savings? Health problems? Answering these questions, you will soberly assess the situation around you, you will understand what in the past and present you cannot influence, and the “inevitable” or “predetermined” will finally take on its specific outlines.
Find a zone of control
What to do: Pay attention to what directly depends on you - the mood, the environment, the way to spend your free time.
An effective way to accept the drifting reality around you is to find the closest support in the familiar and tangible world that surrounds you. It is no coincidence that many are now more active than usual in cleaning, repairing, home improvement. Taking root in your own living space, and not just seeing it as a place to sleep, is an important step towards a stable inner state. Revisit your environment, remove what is annoying or uncomfortable, and adapt the place where you sleep, work and eat.
Another important part of emotional resilience is working with your own mood and emotions. Be aware of how your mood changes throughout the day depending on specific events, messages and people, use an emotion map to recognize shades of your states, or keep a special diary if mood swings interfere with your life.
The same applies to the environment - forced and voluntary. Among the compelled are our parental family, colleagues with whom we work, our children. Analyze which people regularly upset you and who you find it difficult to communicate with. Look at your voluntary environment - acquaintances, friends and acquaintances, past and present partners. What unites you, how did you meet, how did you break up and why did you get along? Think about the difference between the forced and voluntary environment, answer the questions, what kind of people are present in your life and what they bring, what you lack from them. And even if you have very little free time, look from the outside how you spend it on yourself and whether it brings calmness, joy, or helps to recover.
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Invest in health
What to do: Set up a sleep schedule and proper nutrition, identify health problems and ways to cope with them, choose a pleasant physical activity.
In times of crisis, the body needs to be given special attention: it is on the physical condition, endurance and balance of the lifestyle that our mood, well-being and, ultimately, performance depend. Investments in health are also good because they practically do not require money, but they can reduce some expenses.
The first thing to think about is bad habits. It is not necessary to nervously quit all "bad" things, but the amount of alcohol, cigarettes, trans fats, and junk food can always be reduced without affecting mood. This is important to gradual or complete conscious refusal, which does not cause discomfort.
Another free investment is a long, restful sleep. No movie, TV series, book, or urgent business is worth a couple of hours of healing sleep: think about what tasks are eating up your precious night time.
The third investment is your own physical form. In 2020, within the four walls, there is no objective reason not to take care of your body at all, because there are so many ways of caring and leaving, and they are so diverse. Home stretching, self-massage, morning warm-up, bath procedures - it is not at all necessary to jump with a rope and dumbbells to regain the feeling of your own body. The calmer you sleep and the more often you move regularly, the less you will feel inclined to overeat and the more likely your immunity will improve. When planning for the near future, outline the care you need - plan a visit to a therapist and dentist, think about delayed health problems (if you have chronic diseases) and come up with a strategy for solving them after a pandemic.
Think about money
What to do: Analyze the budget for the last year, decide on the categories of necessary, sufficient and unnecessary, build a strategy for savings and earnings, evaluate future acquisitions.
Thinking pragmatically about your personal budget is another way to regain control and gain in the long run and learn from past mistakes. During an economic crisis, one of the most useful skills is to prioritize. Look at income and expenses over the past year. Which income is permanent and which is sporadic? What do you spend most of your time on and how much do you get for it? Is it possible to make any savings, and if not, what is the reason? Look at the list of items purchased and standing expense items. What is needed, what can you do without, what is bought as an emotional reward? Do you have debts and how are you going to pay them off?
Pragmatic questions help to divide anxiety from the economic crisis into its component problems, for each of which a solution can be found. Economic dependence on other people, the need to financially support children and partners, the search for additional income, the cost of recreation and additional education - everything becomes transparent when it receives specific questions and rational justification. Times of crisis are not good, but there is also a lesson from them about the responsible approach to personal spending and consumption.
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Value autonomy
What to do: Define your zone of influence - the space that your decisions influence - and the zone of freedom where you are not limited in your own choices.
Even as we lead humble lives, we engage in a wide variety of social interactions - in school, career, family and friendships. All of this is our zone of influence, where our actions, decisions and values are spread from us to the people with whom we encounter. Personal qualities affect the way we work and communicate, our everyday behavior and family life. Moreover, among the most shy introverts, this zone exceeds several dozen people.
Evaluate your own life in connection with the lives of familiar people - this will help to assess the number of situations and events that would not have happened without your participation. How does your work affect others? Without what responsibilities you have performed, would the collective result not have been achieved? What actions have you done that have changed or influenced other people's lives? Who are you grateful to for being who you are? For whom are you important around, or maybe necessary? All this is a zone of your direct influence.
Outside the boundaries of social life are the zone of autonomy and the zone of freedom. They are determined by how you manage your free time and build your daily routine. Your habits, inclinations and tastes, hobbies and passions, desires and dreams. Both the zone of influence and the zone of autonomy are your fulcrum. A detailed analysis of the first will protect you from the thought that your efforts in relation to the world around you are meaningless, the analysis of the second - from the delusion that you are not the master of your own life.
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