The COVID-19 pandemic was our collective experience with Nihilism, a realization that we could die and no matter what we did or believed in would make any difference or even matter as far as a non-sentient disease goes.

In those early days of the pandemic, my mind went instinctively to connecting with a community of optimists and those who were focused on encouraging others. Indeed, my most popular posts to this day date back to those days.

Conversely, there were many people who just couldn’t wrap their heads around the possibility that they could die at any time and so their instinctual response was to go strongly into denial. They sought out a much-needed community of people who had the same views.

What used to be fringe thinking by groups of conspiracy theorists quickly became mainstream, influencing many new believers into following all sorts of whacky beliefs, essentially they were digging into their pandemic denial and chose to believe alternative theories rather than face the possibility of dying.

Death and the prospect of dying are still topics people shy away from discussing, so it is no wonder that so many people were unprepared for dealing with a global situation that seemed uncontrollable.

It is easier to try to find something smaller that can possibly be controlled, so the popularity of those websites and the information they offered gave some sort of uncomfortable, and angry comfort to them.

Anger is an emotion we are much more familiar with, and is preferable for many over fear. Anger is also seen differently than fear; the righteous and strong get angry, while the weak will fear. This either/or choice compels many to hide their fears and anxieties so they don’t get labeled as weak.

Indeed, many who have deep anxieties or issues with fears, tend to display anger overtly in situations when their fears are triggered. Venting anger is then an extension of feeling those powerful emotions, and unless a person has actively developed tools to deal with their anger, it will bubble over and find an avenue to express itself.

Finding an avenue to express anger isn’t always easy, because there are too many situations where we are hard-wired not to show our anger, for example on our jobs.

It is usually the “lower” rung of jobs classes or people who will then be seen as “acceptable” targets, so we saw a huge uptick in people venting on those in more vulnerable positions such as cashiers, baristas, and waitresses. Certain ethnic or racial groups were also seen as “acceptable” targets to vent on, giving way to people not only venting verbally but also beating someone to the edge of death.

Instances of domestic violence escalated, addictions multiplied, mental health issues sky-rocketed, and divorces became a by-product of those times.

Has this become our “new normal” or do you see signs that the mania is slowly shifting back to a more balanced place?

In order for the mania, the violence, the addictions, and the mental health issues to become more manageable, people need help to make those changes.

Are you seeing evidence of people getting the help they need? Are you seeing that the edge of people’s fears slips back into the background areas of their lives, or are these still being played out in your region?

As the pandemic slowly fades from people’s day-to-day lives, the immediate dangers are slowly being removed, and people’s fears are getting a chance to subside.

As their fears subside, their need to grab onto any mental life raft they can find also lessens, so we are seeing people slowly walking away from their online obsessions with websites that actually fed their fears, and they are re-entering their lives.

Learning how to handle our emotions, and how to develop tools of resiliency, empathy, and kindness during difficult times is challenging in the best of times, but unless we do the work, we won’t have them in our toolkit to fall back on when things get tough in our lives.

It’s never too late to make changes!

Start small, with manageable things, and then build to the areas which are giving you problems.

You can do this! You are stronger than you realize at this moment!

I hope you’ll poke around my Archived Posts to find a wonderful trove of supportive and encouraging posts! Don’t forget to Like, Comment, and Follow my blog! If you want to become a Guest writer, please contact me and we’ll work out the details!

I’m sharing more posts that may be helpful for you:

• 10 Steps to Owning Our Happiness
• Setting “Boundaries with consequences”
• Making a change… “How do I take that first step?”
• Affirmation: Today is a new day! I can do this!
• As we practice being gentle and kind with ourselves, we actually help to speed the process of helping our lives become more positive!
• Always believe that wonderful things can happen!
• A healthy outside starts from the inside!
• Brain Rewiring

More good stuff:

• Teaching ourselves to like, even to love ourselves
• By changing our inner dialogue, we change EVERYTHING!
• Challenge: When a negative thought enters your mind, think three positive ones. Train yourself to flip the script!
• Red Ocean or Blue Ocean? How do you think?
• An answer to dealing with the Inner Critic!
• My top 10 most viewed posts, plus a few bonuses!
• A helpful trick to be able to overcome negatively Comparing Ourselves to others…
• Do you only accept yourself if you look a certain way?
• A new you! Is this possible?
• Start today, start tomorrow, just start!
• There is no enlightenment outside of daily life – Thich Nhat Hanh

Blessings!
Thank you for sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara
https://tamarakulish.com/ Archived Posts: https://tamarakulish.com/archived-posts/

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Developing Happiness When You Can’t Find It and How to Heal Your Life on a Deep Heart Level are available in paperback and Kindle. Audiobooks are available for the busy person!

Guided Journals help you work on a particular issue by answering questions to help see patterns and to find solutions:

Removing Inner Blocks,    Anger Journal,    Guided Anxiety Journal    Joy & Mindfulness Journal     My Boundaries Journal   My Inner Thoughts Journal   

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