After keeping yourself together all week, being strong for your family, your peers, your clients, neighbors and country, Today might be a day when the stress comes crashing down. Thatâs ok. Itâs healthy. You need to let it out and let it go. You need to have a time to be feel worry and disbelief and shock and sadness. Thatâs courage: to acknowledge and ask for help and reason and reaffirm - rediscovering your strength to go on.
And there are so many ways to do that:
Take a walk with someone and just say things out loud, and listen, and not try to solve
Pick up a pen and write your thoughts down; then read them over, crumpled it up and throw it away
Call someone and ask them for a few minutes to listen, then share at least one ânon-crisis-relatedâ thought with each other
Talk to yourself, your higher power or just say to the Universe, âHey, I gotta get this off my mind...â and when youâre done say to yourself, âIâm done for now.â You can always listen for a response later.
In the meantime, turn off your phone and feeds and streams and most of all any stress-induced posts. This isnât really the best time to talk politics or play scientist or hurl comments or post zingers. Itâs not a moment to score points or be right or tell others you told them so. Not because youâre not mad or sad nor because youâre not smart: Nor is it about your reputation or business or stature in the community.
Itâs really just because it wonât help You.
Itâs not what you need, and it wonât lower your stress and it wonât give you strength. You canât change the politics today: you canât solve the science or medicine; You canât fix those who arenât complying with the rules or who are flinging conspiracies around the webs. You wonât convince the journalists to be better or the trolls to stay home: Not one of the best one-liners will make you feel any better.
I could be wrong; and this is just what Iâm doing for myself. Sharing it is my way of âwritingâ through my own built-up stress this week. So if youâve read this far I should also say âThank youâ and pardon me for not asking permission beforehand.
Yet I truly hope youâll take the rest of the afternoon off. Give yourself permission to do the hardest part of getting through this moment in history: Take care.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of others.
Take care not to take it out of control.