One Question to Ask Yourself When Everything Is Devastating
This article is part of our weekly TGIF newsletter series. To get these in your inbox weekly, sign up below:
Things are feeling harder lately, and if you’re feeling the dread of winter and exhaustion of keeping up with it all, you’re not alone. As a mental health organization, when we are “busy,” it’s honestly bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m grateful that clients choose us and ask for help. On the other hand, it’s hard to witness so many people suffering. And a lot of people are not okay right now.
Winter in the Midwest is predictable - in that you’re going to get cold, ice, bitter temperatures, snow days, school closures, and a lot of days inside going stir crazy. You’re also (if you’re like me) going to spend too many hours on Zillow daydreaming of living someplace warmer or checking Costco Travel for last-minute deals. For a quick laugh, remember this SNL spoof for Zillow?
You’re not alone in your misery.
But I had this realization yesterday, after school drop-off, when the kids were talking over each other about migrating somewhere warm like the birds and coming up with places where you can play outside every day - our misery is nothing special. If that feels harsh, I hope you’ll stay with me as I explain what I mean.
So often when we are struggling - with anxiety, postpartum, depression, lust, chronic pain, grief, heartbreak - we become really involved in it and center ourselves in the experience. Factually, one of the worst parts of not feeling great is the isolation and loneliness it creates. We tend to get very tunnel-visioned in our own challenges, feeling like we are the only ones ever to have felt this way or experienced something like this.
And it’s just not true.
Photo by Dimitris Chapsoulas on Unsplash
In some ways, this self-centering helps us validate our feelings and give ourselves permission to wallow and emote. As a therapist, I encourage honoring our emotional experiences and cathartic release. It’s important not to dismiss what we may be going through and feel into it. The problem is when we stay in it and get stuck. Then, what may be a passing feeling, disturbance, or annoyance becomes a mood.
The Antidote to Moodiness
This method is not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but rather, pulling yourself out of your head. It’s not easy - it’s super entertaining, actually, to get caught in the noise in your mind, and our ego likes us there. If we stay in the noise, we get to keep centering ourselves, and our ego loves all that specialness and attention! When we ruminate on our issues, we reiterate the story that we’re unique, and no one else is like us, which again, our ego LOVES to fuel.
But as we know from the greatest teachers of our human lineage, separation is neither healing nor protective. To remain centered in our suffering, we not only cut ourselves off from the support and help we may receive from others, but we also miss that, actually, therapeutically, we are not special. And this is important - because the more we understand that we are not special, the more we see ourselves in others and connect to the shared experience rather than just what we see as our own.
The Collective Response to Trauma
Let’s zoom out a second. Remember during the pandemic how connected we all felt when it was a shared experience? I recall coloring chalk messages on the sidewalk with my neighbors (6 feet away, of course) and putting up Post-it rainbows in our front windows. Walking around our town, I saw similar messages, a reminder that, while we all had to isolate, we were in it together. There was something so healing about those connected moments that right now, I feel nostalgic for.
I think right now, we have similar shared traumatic experiences. But rather than come together, we’re being further pulled apart. And trauma does that - there are four typical responses to trauma and stress:
Fight - Looks like anger. Felt in extremities and head. Meeting intensity with intensity by yelling, screaming, hitting, or punching. Rage and conflict.
Flee - Looks like needing to leave. Running away or fleeing from an uncomfortable or threatening situation. Avoidance and escapism.
Freeze - Looks like not being able to say or do anything at all. Reactive immobility that forces you to stay put. Numbing.
Fawn - Looks like people-pleasing. The need to comfort others, while ignoring your own needs, to avoid conflict. Staying quiet and compliant.
These reactions are just that - reactions - and without understanding why we are reacting this way and naming how we are reacting, we will continue to engage in unhelpful responses to stress and chaos.
The Million Dollar Question
Instead, maybe we can pause and take a collective breath - yes, right now with me - and acknowledge the feelings within:
Oh, I feel frightened. I feel worried. I feel despair. I feel anger. I feel embarrassed. I feel grief. I feel tired. I feel alone. I feel paranoid.
Okay, good job.
Now, the question to ask yourself in response:
Why am I doing what I am doing, and is it working?
Is it working to hate-scroll those influencers? Is it working to panic? Is it working to look outside and groan? Is it working to stay buried in bed? Is it working to drink those beers after work? Is it working to gossip? Is it working to read the news? Is it working to scowl?
As we like to say in the biz, nothing changes if nothing changes. Personally, I could keep binge-planning vacations and daydreaming about moving, or I could choose a different response because, genuinely, it doesn’t feel good to be bitter and grumpy. It’s not how I want to feel, and not the energy I want to give to my community.
The Bottom Line
Because, truly, that’s what this whole thing is really all about: contributing in a meaningful way to our world, our shared humanity. I don’t know about you, but I feel like the world deserves the best version of me, and I want to be the best version of me for the world.
Because what I seek is change for the better. And, lo and behold, it starts with me.
Support for Your Mental Health
At Reset Brain and Body, we support clients through foundational and holistic wellness, nervous system regulation, and more. If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Our team is here to walk with you—through the overwhelm and into presence.
Ready to begin your healing journey?
Explore our unique approach to foundational wellness or fill out a new client inquiry form.
Conscious Transparency: This newsletter was edited by AI for grammar, spelling, and sentence structure, but every idea, tone of voice, perspective, and word choice was my own. This newsletter is imperfect because a human wrote it. Thank you for your graciousness.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: A therapist on our team shared a story about deleting all social media apps and replacing them with journaling apps. Now that’s a change I can get behind. I think most of you know how much I despise social media (is Substack that… I don’t know yet…), but the idea of choosing to journal instead when you are called to avoid/numb/escape is awesome. There are a ton of ways to do this - but simply (and for free) is just using your Notes app.
Gratitude: When I’m struggling to fall asleep, I have heavily leaned into reciting all that I’m grateful for. As I lay there, I just go through all the things in my life and say “thank you” over and over, listing each off. When we could choose to ruminate on all the bad, it’s a relaxing and empowering decision to instead focus on all the good. And guess what? I fall asleep pretty easily with this routine in place.
Innovation: Another therapist on our team shared that, at a recent public town hall-type meeting, she was met with hysterics and overwhelmed by many people spiraling out. She said that while it may have been easier to join the panicked mood, she asked the collective to join her in taking a long, slow, deep breath. This is also the change we wish to see - to take the reaction and alchemize it into purposeful action.
Feels: Ultimately, what I’m sharing this week is about being an active participant in our own lives. This past weekend, my husband and I took a trip where so many things went wrong. But rather than get caught in a “woe is me” victim mindset, we chose calm and correction at every turn. We just pivoted, trusted in the unfolding, and focused on what was still great. This is intentional action - to choose a different response to the stress - and it just feels good to redirect attention to the positive. It’s not Pollyanna, it’s practicing discernment of what we allow to bother us and resilience in leaning towards what can make us feel better.