During these COVID 19 days, many of us are spending much more time than usual with our families. Certainly there are some who are alone, and that has its own peculiar challenges. But, today I am thinking about those who are sheltering in place with several other people. Many of those families include adults and children.
Some are discovering that togetherness can be stressful. Families normally have some rhythm of intimacy and distance. We create patterns of coming together for some activities and then separating for other activities. Each family has its patterns which make it possible to tend to our need to love and nurture others and our desire to care for our own unique needs.
But now, forced togetherness places unusual stress on the family. Families are systems. They are a gathering of people in which each plays her/his role. Each person’s actions impact the feelings of others. When one person is anxious others in the system pick up on that vibration. In these days of forced separation from our normal patterns, our friends, our dreams, our activities, almost everyone in the family system has anxiety. We worry and are fearful of what is happening in our world. Plans have been scuttled, dreams lost and hopes delayed.
When family systems vibrate with anxiety it is hard to feel the comfort and security that we have often felt from our family unit. The loss of life as we have known it takes a toll on our coping skills. When everyone in the family is adapting to new patterns and new limits, stress will inevitably mount. Sometimes it might even overflow and things are said and actions are taken that we would regret in less stressful times. Loss of comfort and security simply intensifies anxiety.
Unfortunately no instruction manuals came with this crisis. Each individual and each family is making it up as we go. How can we reduce our family anxiety?
A couple of things come to mind.
Count to 10
One is “count to 10.” When we are anxious and our fuse is shorter than usual, it sometimes helps to give some space between our immediate feelings and our response to those feelings. Counting gives us time to remember that the other people in the house are also trying to figure out how to live these days. Maybe we can think about the grace we want for ourselves when we are confused and scared and offer that grace to the others. We will all make mistakes. Forgiveness might be healing. This is not always easy but it might help us not add to the anxiety and tension by reactions that we might later regret.
Go Short
We might also need to shorten our perspective for a while. Most of time we plan ahead and anticipate what is coming down the road. But we don’t know what that is going to be. We fill that empty space with things we fear. We become scared. So, it might help to reduce stress to shorten your vision to more “here and now.” “What can we do right now to live together in loving relationships. What are our choices for this hour or this day.” This perspective may moderate our anxiety for a while.
Expect Less
And maybe we can lower our expectations of ourselves and each other. What worked in normal times might not work now. We will do some things that work well and others that turn out to be disasters. Maybe we can access our sense of humor and ignite some laughter at ourselves. When we are not sure what is the right thing to do, we will have to try, stumble, fall, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and try something else.
Since we are all making this up as we go, we need companions on this journey. So, reach out to other parents. Share your successes and failures. If we are in this together we need to help each other write some operations manual to get us through.