Despite my proclamations in my blog post yesterday, yes, I did check the news and yes, I did touch my face. A lot.
I typically consider myself a person who feels anxiety more than the average Joe. So when average Joe starts showing signs of his easy-going facade cracking and crumbling, I really start to wig. I hate collective anxiety. I usually consider anxiety, an annoying quirk of my own creation (I sometimes see myself as a prettier, younger, non-pervy, but totally neurotic female version of Woody Allen), so when I see anxiety in every one whom I come in contact with these days (despite my best efforts to be a hermit, and to remain in my own little hole), it really is a bit disconcerting. I saw this quote on the internet a while back:
“Drama does not just walk into your life. Either you create it, invite it, or associate with it.”
I did not create the coronavirus. I am not that diabolical. So far, I have not come down with the coronavirus, nor has anyone in my family and friends circle. We are all washing our hands a lot. We have not invited the coronavirus into our inner circle. However, I am associating with the coronavirus, a hell of a lot more than I should. Checking the news continuously, being on hyper alert for every sneeze and cough, watching the hourly fluctuations of our stocks, rationing our toilet paper, are all activities that are not at all helpful to my mental health and thus the mental health of those around me. Drama is not good for me. I must own the part that I am playing in associating with the drama of the coronavirus. I cannot control where this coronavirus situation leads to, in the future. But I can control taking care of the health of my body, taking necessary precautions, and then doing my best to let the rest go. My mental health is a big part of my overall health. I need to walk the talk of my faith. I can let this coronavirus situation be a dramatic over-the-top, punctuated, highlighted lesson of how I sometimes allow other situations (political/interpersonal/social, etc.) grow and bloom and take a life of its own, in my own mind, until my mind is stuck on a 24/7 channel of a ridiculous, overly dramatic soap opera or news feed. And then I’m stuck in that situation where, although I can’t stand the show that I am fixated on, I can’t seem to find the fortitude to turn it off.
“Fear and control is a Lincoln Log. We cannot give up our need to control (illusion of control) unless we are willing to relinquish our fear; we cannot give up our fear unless we stop trying to control. The two are inextricably linked. Where we are fearful, we try to control. When we try to control and invariably fail, we become more fearful.” – Anne Wilson Schaef
“Trusting the process of life isn’t about taking your hands off the wheel. It’s more a matter of holding on to the wheel and just the wheel – controlling what you can and letting the rest soften and blur in the side window as you pass.” – Holiday Mathis
I am going to create the “Fortune for the Day” from things I cut out and taped to the cover page of my 2020 calendar:
