Quieting Pandemic Panic: A Mindfulness Exercise

As we collectively experience the prolonged pandemic emergency due to the spread of the coronavirus, and as we make our way through a new norm of social distancing and practicing shelter-in-place (or staying home), it’s important to find different ways of managing the excessive worry and fear that is hitting all of us very hard. It’s hit us hard in so many profound ways, from literally disrupting our daily routines and losing some of our freedoms, to worrying about our lives and the lives of loved ones, to losing our jobs and businesses, and to the frightening possibility of complete economic collapse, etc. We are floating in unprecedented, unchartered waters, never seen or experienced before. This pandemic has upended our world as we know it. It has also kicked us out of our comfort zone. But we don’t need to live like exiles from that very comfort zone that we know so well. Via mindfulness, we can instead create a new comfort zone. But not a comfort zone based on immediate results or conceptual needs. And not a comfort zone based on surface thinking, or on future-based projections, which is what’s causing people the most distress right now, and I of course understand why. I, too, am feeling the same way. This would be creating a new comfort zone just based on the present. Right NOW. This minute. I know that sounds over-simplified, but here’s an opportunity for us to look at this adversity as an agent of change — an opportunity to alter our day-t...
Source: World of Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Anxiety and Panic Mindfulness Self-Help coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic stress reduction Source Type: blogs