In this episode, I'm going to talk with you about how to ditch COVID anxiety. What's COVID anxiety? You know, it's kind of that pervasive feeling of an uneasiness that we've all got around the pandemic. So whether it's health-related or activity-related, basically, it's an anxiety that came from the past year's incredibly stressful situation.
So this episode is for people that are ready to kind of pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get moving forward. Because if you don't, you're going to get stuck there, my friend, and that is not what we want. So let's dig in and talk about COVID anxiety and how to get rid of it.
You're listening to Take Out Therapy with your host, Rebecca Hunter. If you're into personal growth and fascinated by the human condition like I am, stick with me. In the next few minutes, I'll break down a common personal growth topic and give you some straightforward ideas for change.
I'm a private practice therapist and online mental health educator, so I see a lot of popular topics both in and out of the therapy office that we all struggle with. I'm here to help with that. This podcast is not a substitute for therapy, but rather the musings of a therapist and an opportunity for information and a little bit of help.
Okay, let's get to work. Hello, party people. Are you ready to learn something new today? You know, I'm looking around the world and I'm hearing a lot from people.
And basically what people are saying is like, it's time to start to move forward out of this pandemic. But for some reason, I can't. And so I'm hearing this a lot, actually.
We've started calling it COVID anxiety, which is super lame. We have to have a catchphrase for everything. But let's talk about this today and help you if you need to move forward into the next phase of life, but you're feeling a little bit stuck in pandemia.
This episode will be helpful for you because I'm going to teach you how to release, you know, like kind of I guess what I would describe as COVID-based anxiety or health-based anxiety. That might be applicable as well. So you can start to readjust and move forward.
Doesn't that sound lovely? But first, you know what we have to do. We have to talk about what the heck just happened here from a brain and body standpoint. Because once you understand kind of what your brain and body have been through, then you can start working with your brain and body to come out of it.
Does that make sense? A lot of people are saying like my anxiety has never been so bad. The amount of overthinking and worrying and fear and flat-out paralyzation that people are experiencing, like some people haven't left their house in a really long time. And maybe it's not that bad for you.
Maybe it's more like you think about COVID and the pandemic and germs in your health and your fears and your anxieties around that all the time. Maybe that's what's happening. Or maybe you're just like having trouble figuring out how to live life in this new weird way of living.
Where I live, things are really calming down for the moment. And so what that looks like is that restaurants are opening and people are starting to go out and work again and live again, go out to eat, do more than just sit at home, right? I had the most beautiful moment. A couple days ago, I was driving downtown to go to work and the park was open, you guys.
We have this really cute park in my town and all the little kids and their parents were out there. And I just felt so much joy in that moment, just being like, oh my gosh, those poor families whose kids wanted to go to the park all this time but weren't able to. Now we can get back to normal.
But can we, right? That's the question. You know, this pandemic is really what we're calling a collective trauma. So let me explain to you a little bit about what that means and what the impact on our brain and body is so that you can kind of start to understand what you need to do to reset your system.
Collective trauma is basically like when we all go through something really scary and really sometimes life-threatening and really like this situation is really pervasive. So even if like you don't know anybody who had the COVID or you didn't really have to come into contact with it, you still were in this situation with me, friend, right? The world kind of came to a standstill. The structure dropped out from under us and we were afraid, right? Many people were afraid.
Many people were rolling their eyes. And that's a thing too, right? To sort of have this kind of weird situation that's very unprecedented in our lifetime and then try to figure out like, oh, how am I supposed to feel here? So there was a lot of disruption. There was a lot of unsafe feelings.
Many people became incredibly overwhelmed, not only with the amount of contact that we were having to have with the people in our homes, but also with all the information, right? And then there's also like a lack of information because we're not all scientists. And so sometimes all those things combined, they really mess with the brain, okay? So your brain's job is to keep you safe. And emotions such as lack of safety, fear, overwhelm, right, confusion, frustration, when, you know, there's a lot of change, let's not get into the loss, right? But the brain doesn't like these things because it equates them with safety.
So the brain thinks that when we have difficult times, we're kind of unsafe. And it goes into a mode of taking over. So if you noticed that, you know, when this thing was going on, you're doing a lot of thinking about it, that's why.
Because the brain has to focus on the object of fear, right? I mean, for lack of a deep neuroscience lesson, I will just tell you this whole pandemic is a shit show for brains, okay? And so if it's time to regroup, and it's time to get back to life, and it's time for a reset, then how are we going to get there, my friends? Because basically what's happened is that our brains have taken a bit of a beating and gotten trained into feeling unsafe. So we have to retrain. We have to reparent our brains.
We have to reteach, right? So let me talk to you about ways that you can start to come out of this very pandemic-based anxiety where maybe you find that you're kind of like not doing the things that you're looking around you and being like, well, other people are going to restaurants, or other people are going here and going there, or maybe it's time for me to go look for work, and just not feeling that safety, and so you're not able to move forward. Because that's incredibly frustrating. And just so you know, like I'm not suggesting that you move forward in any specific way.
You know me. I think that we need to move from within, which means who cares what I think. You move forward in a way that feels right to you.
So as you kind of start to think about, like, well, how can I get rid of this COVID anxiety, just know that the more room that you make for it and the more you kind of rearrange your life around this anxious feeling about this pandemic, the more space it will take up. Yeah. So you kind of have to squish it out of there, not very gently squish it out of there.
I mean, like, you need to give it less space. So how do you want things to be in your life? Like, what are you looking to do? You want to take your kids to the park? You want to go maybe go to the mall and get a new shirt? Do you want to start looking for some work? Do you want to feel more comfortable about dropping your kids off at school? So when you're thinking about change, what you really want to do is think out and imagine kind of like, well, what is it that you want life to feel like? And then come back to the present and be like, okay, well, what is it like right now? Right. So, you know, a lot of times the brain, it's a B.S. machine.
I mean, you guys know your brain talks all day long, right? And for lack of a better things to say, it will just come up with a bunch of B.S. for your amusement. I'm not amused. I don't know about you.
So we want to stop that. And so what you want to do is basically like assess the situation that you're living in. You know, we all kind of live in this very unique and different setting.
Like in the town that I live in, for example, like we're we're really coming out in this very fluid way. Like everything's opening. We're coming our risk levels come all the way down.
So it might not be like that where you are. So you got to look around you. Right.
Get your location specific current information about what's going on and look at like, well, what are other people doing or what feels reasonable for you in your life where you're at? Right. And I want you to do this kind of objectively. Don't do it from the place in you that's fueling the anxiety.
Do it from the place in you that is your value is where you hold your values. Right. About how you want your life to be, because that's the place in you that we need to work from.
We need to let go of working from the amped up anxious place and work from the you place, my friend. Because the thing is, is like it's your life. And if you want to, you know, see your friends or go out to eat or go to the park.
Right. That's that's your value. So get all the information and then ask yourself some hard questions.
Right. Like, which of this is the anxiety that I have that that frankly, like most people have, by the way, because this situation, again, was collective trauma. But take a look at kind of where you're at and where you'd like to be.
Decide on some reasonable accommodations. Right. Like, obviously, we all need to wear our masks.
Right. Whether we want to or not, it's pretty much we pretty much have to. It doesn't really matter your opinion.
It's best case practice. And so, you know, like decide on the ways that you were going to stay within your safety zone. One of the things that this covid anxiety brings up is this total lack of safety.
Right. And so people are like feeling like they have to go above and beyond to stay safe. And maybe in some situations that's warranted, but maybe in some situations that's the anxiety talking.
Does that make sense? So find your value and kind of do an assessment. Do I feel like my behavior or my level of safety is reasonable? OK. And then just like decide what you decide and stick to it.
One of the things that people get tripped up with in disciplining their brain is that we set this boundary and like, OK, I'm not going to listen to the anxiety. Right. In this situation, I'm going to listen to what I know.
So, yeah, I am going to go to dinner with my friends, but like I'm going to wear a mask or whatever, you know, your own preference is. And then you get there and then no one else is wearing a mask. And then you basically like ignore your own boundary.
And guess what? You take off the mask and you just trained your brain that your boundaries don't mean anything. And so what I would say is like you have to kind of when you're coming out of trauma based anxiety or fear, you have to set reasonable safety boundaries for yourself and then stick to them. That's how we discipline our kids.
You know, you're not like, you know, you can't stay out past 10. And then your kid comes home at two in the morning and you're like, well, it's OK this time. Right.
They're going to come home at two a.m. every time. If you do that, you have to set the boundary and stick to it. The brain is the same.
It's looking to you to provide it with what it needs to function well, my friend. So stick to your boundaries. So how do you stick to your boundaries? Well, what I find is really helpful for my clients is that we develop a mantra that basically when you get topsy turvy in your decision, like, for example, say you haven't left the house in a while and you're like, you know what? I'm going to leave my house three times a week this time this week.
OK, so one of those times you're not going to feel like doing what you said you were going to do. But remember, you're retraining your brain about what's safe. And so you need to do that.
You decided on your own boundary. Now you have to stick to it. Throw a mantra in there.
Throw a little phrase in there where you remind yourself that you're acting from your own self, your own knowing. Don't listen to the anxiety. Listen to yourself.
That could be your mantra. Right. Or it's OK.
You can make some changes is another great mantra. So it's just a few words phrase that you want to stick into those tough moments when you're about to go back on your boundary. I also want to throw in there that it's a good idea to reassure yourself kindly like that.
You know what you're talking about, friend. Right. Because what sneaks in there is this like self-doubt of like, oh, maybe maybe it isn't safe.
Maybe I shouldn't do that. I don't really want to. Right.
So you just need to understand that all those things are going to pop up because the brain is where it is. And what you're trying to do is get the brain into a different place. OK, so it's interesting because I just want to talk really quickly about anxiety and the problem with situations like this pandemic or car accidents or, you know, other kind of life events that cause us trauma is basically like it throws us into this into this brain state of having to protect.
And so whether we need to or not is of no consequence. Right. Because the brain's running the show now.
And so what happens is the brain gets like miss parented. Right. Miss trained.
And we end up, you know, in this spinny cycle of isolation. Right. Because we're we become fearful and we start life starts getting smaller.
Right. And we get we we get alone because of fear. So we spend a lot of time in fear.
The brain is always talking with us about our fear. Right. And what happens is that we end up really lonely because we need to connect.
We're human beings and we get really disconnected and we're disconnected with ourself because we're living in our brains and we're disconnected with the people in our lives because we're living in fear. Right. And so I see this so much of the time with all kinds of different problems with anxiety.
But what I want you to know is whether you have covid anxiety or regular old everyday anxiety, it's a problem. Nine times out of 10 is a problem with your brain and it's a solvable problem. So I'll keep talking about anxiety in lots of different ways over the next couple of weeks or so.
And we'll just keep the conversation going because I think it's worthy of like picking ourselves up and dusting ourselves off and moving forward. Don't you? I'm ready to move forward. And if that means I move forward in a really, really safe way.
OK, fine. Obviously, in my own life, you guys know my nickname is Safety Sally. Right.
In my own life, I do a lot of stuff to mitigate risk and I have to trust that I know what's best for myself and for my family. Right. So I want you to just live in peace.
Right. Live in peace and know that, you know, what's best for yourself. Your brain doesn't know what's best for you, friend.
You've got to override that thing. I'll keep showing you how. OK, take care of yourself.
See you next week. Hey there. If you're someone who experiences anxiety on a regular basis and you're kind of in that funny in-between of like, should I go to therapy? Should I take the medication like it's time to get to work on the anxiety? What should I do? And you're finding kind of a stuckness there.
Let me present you with another option. As a therapist, what I know is not everybody needs therapy to heal anxiety. That's why I've developed some online classes to help you kind of dig into the deeper roots of why you have anxiety and help you to start a very comprehensive brain based and research backed way to heal from anxiety.
If you're interested in learning more, just check out my website. The link is in the show notes. But here's the deal.
Anxiety is a solvable problem. So move towards solution, whatever that looks like for you. If you like the podcast, it really helps this project.
If you subscribe, send it along to a couple of friends and keep listening. We need more mental health education people. That's what I'm doing here.
I have a lot of unpaid content that I put out like this podcast, but I also have two paid programs. One for people who want to stop overthinking everything to death. And I also have an in-depth program for anxiety recovery.
So if you want to dig into some work with me, get in touch. You can find me at RebeccaHunterMSW.com. That's an MSW because I have a master's in social work. A lot of people ask about that.
And yes, I am a therapist, but this show is not meant as therapy, but rather education. Thanks for listening.
