Feel Your Feelings

Acknowledging all your feelings will help your mental health and wellbeing. These resources may help.

Right now, everyone in the whole world is living a roller coaster of emotions. Hourly!

We are seeing the very best and the very worst of humanity right now.

Governments are trying to respond in ways that will protect their populations. Medical experts are grappling with the rapid spread of something they don’t have all the answers to.

We are facing uncertainty every single day.

For me, personally, I’ve had to face the loss of my jobs and face the prospect of no income for at least the next month. If everything opens again, I’ll get at least one of my jobs back, but who knows?!

I perhaps won’t see my children and family this year. I just don’t know. My sister had planned a visit in June but that will probably be cancelled. I have tickets to see my family in October — again, more uncertainty.

The biggest thing that has struck me in the past week since Finland declared a state of emergency, is that I must feel my feelings.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

It is really easy to smile, bury the feelings and reply with “I’m fine” when the reality is you’re feeling confused, uncertain, and in grief. This is exactly what I was doing until I realised that I was scared, I was anxious. I didn’t feel great.

So I let myself feel the feelings. And cried. Talked about it. And did a little bit of research.

David Kessler, a specialist in grief, suggests we are all in grief at the moment — many of us in anticipatory grief, ‘the feeling we get about what the future holds when we’re uncertain.’ That feeling that something is coming — in this case, a virus — and we are confused and feel unsafe.

All of these feelings are normal. All of them should be felt so we can let them go.

Kessler recommends the following to combat the loop of anxiety that can so often happen:

• Mindfulness — focus on the present, what is around you. Name five things around you — the table, a couch, a chair, a laptop, a mug of tea. Breath. In this moment you are okay — you are not sick, you have food. Use your senses and think about what they feel — the table is hard, the keyboard is cool, the air is cool going through my nose.
• Let go of what you can’t control — you can wash your hands, stay your distance when you’re out shopping. You can’t control what others are doing but what you do. Focus on what you can do. Make your bed, have a shower, get dressed — develop a routine for ourself.
• Stock up on compassion — everyone will be dealing with things in their own way. The stress, the anxiety, so be patient. Check-in on people you know might be feeling vulnerable. Often people will react in ways that are not ‘them.’ Be patient, have compassion.

The work of Dr. Russ Harris is also something to check out. He busts some myths about happiness and reinforces the idea of feeling all your feelings. His take away? Don’t hold happiness up to be the pinnacle of human feeling and a goal to be reached.

If you’re not happy you are not defective! There’s nothing wrong with not feeling happy. Especially in times of extreme uncertainty like we are now.

His FACE COVOID anagram is a great way to deal with all of your feelings and is a way of controlling how you respond but allowing yourself to feel all the feelings that might surface for you.

It comes complete with a free e-book to read too.

There’s nothing wrong with not feeling happy. Especially in times of extreme uncertainty like we are now.

Feeling scared, uncertain, and anxious are all perfectly normal responses to the unprecedented time we find ourselves in. Looking after your mental health and wellbeing should be a top priority for you.

Hopefully, these tools can help you in that process.

❤ We are all in this together ❤

Lisa is a teacher and writer based in Finland. If you’d like to keep in touch, Northern Notes is her sporadic newsletter.