#FindYourTribe – Managing Anxiety

Hi everybody, its Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, helping you reach your ‘breakthrough moment.’ 

Last week I talked about how Corona can tell you something about your relationship; (and if you’d like to see that, scroll down) 

Today I’d really like to talk about the actual virus and what it’s setting off in all of us! You know, it really does feel like we’re each in an open field, knowing the beast is out there… not knowing when he’s going to strike, not knowing who he’s going to pick off and not really knowing what to do about it.

So without a clear direction about what to do, we’re all sort of just looking around and listening and that primitive brain is really getting engaged! And as we’re being encouraged to socially distance, it starts to feel really lonely. The places we orient ourselves, like work and school, and some places in our community are either shut off or unavailable to us somehow.

It’s disorienting, it’s ungrounding and that makes sense! We’re not built for this! We’re wired for connection! 

If you go back to that ‘open field’ example, I thought  – when I go to the grocery store and the shelves are empty, it triggers this sense like everybody else knows something that I don’t! Someone just took off in that empty field and I think maybe I should run too! Maybe I should be doing something else –  maybe they know something I don’t!

You can really get how that could create a sense of panic, maybe too soon – who knows?

We don’t know. That’s the point; it’s scary!

So what do we do when we feel scared like that and we have no point to orient ourselves? I really want to encourage you guys to look around you; see where your tribe is. 

As you’re not going away from your home to get your points of orientation, look around and say, ‘Oh, my neighbor who I say hi to maybe we deepen that a little bit…’  ‘maybe my family who I don’t ever have time for suddenly becomes a source of joy…’ 

We want to think about the connections and how we might share this time together. This is not going to be a snow day this is going to be something that’s going to last weeks. We are stronger together; we are built to connect and find ways of being with each other, so as we go into the coming weeks, I really encourage you guys do all the things that all the doctors are telling us to do with social distancing. But also find ways to connect with the people who live in your house who live close to you. Find ways to share your time, your resources. There’s so many stories about how this is helping people get through the crisis in other countries. 

Let’s do this together! 

I’m Maggie O’Connor at Breakthrough MFT, hoping this helps you to break on through.