Mind Matters with Kyle MacDonald: Covid, lockdown, case numbers: We all want to talk about something else

Denial is a natural response to dealing with distress and overwhelming emotions but is only useful in small doses. Photo / 123rf

ADVICE

Q: I'm so sick of everything being about Covid. It's all everyone talks about - am I wrong to want to talk about something else?

A: Believe me, you are not alone. Day in, day out, the news starts to feel the same, we feel like we've run out of things to talk about and every conversation is about case numbers and how long "lockdown" is going to last.

It's normal to want to just reject this and pretend it isn't happening.

And you should, up to a point.

Restricting your exposure to the news, the endless opinion pieces (apart from this one of course!) can be a useful strategy. Even better to limit your social media diet, and avoid the conflict that seems to be building the deeper into this lockdown we go.

However, it's also true that completely disconnecting, or putting your head in the sand isn't wise either. Denial is a natural - and often automatic - response to dealing with distress and overwhelming emotions, and can be useful in small doses, but it has its downsides.

We can't live in denial or avoidance, and so it's a short-term strategy best thought of as a "sprint". But this pandemic is a marathon.

So by all means dive back under the covers - for the day. Unplug from the news, but make sure you keep up with the bare minimum, to have enough information to navigate the day to day in your area.

Because to balance the short sprints of avoidance we also need to work on acceptance - which is hard when reality is not the way you want it to be. But that's the challenge with acceptance.

And when reality is distressing, it's important to recognise that we need to keep returning to acceptance, over and over again. Even though it's hard we have to stay connected with reality to be able to respond and live day to day effectively.

Because you can't sprint a marathon. You just have to keep going, just putting one foot in front of the other.

Q: I'm really struggling with the ongoing lockdown and I've been told gratitude can help - focusing on how others have it worse off. But that makes me feel worse as all I can think about is how I don't have any right to be upset about anything.

A: Gratitude practices are really helpful, and I highly recommend them. However, it's also important to avoid what I call "the suffering Olympics".

Gratitude is about simple - but can be hard to do. Simply put, it's just focusing on things that we can be grateful for.

However, while making comparisons with others less fortunate can be a good way to generate gratitude, it can easily flip on us - especially if you're prone to being self-critical.

This is the "suffering Olympics" - where we invalidate our own emotional pain because someone else is worse off; we don't have a right to feel what we feel and just need to get over it and be grateful for what we have.

The problem is it's always true - but it being true is irrelevant. We don't have to justify our feelings.

So rather than thinking about comparisons, focus instead on the present. It helps if we practise gratitude with small day-to-day things - because it's about refocusing on the positive or pleasurable things that we often take for granted.

The nice meal, the coffee we walked to our local cafe to get. The smile of a stranger. The sun on our back.

Gratitude works because we keep bringing into focus these things. And remember, no one wins the suffering Olympics.