On COVID-19 & the Unknown
By Anna Kim, ASW
If you’re reading this now, I imagine it’s from home. I imagine most things you’re doing now are from home, and that—for most of you—this wasn’t what you had planned for spring. I know I’d envisioned it differently.
What’s happening now is unprecedented. No one has experienced it before in exactly this way, and no one really knows what’s going to happen. While I would argue that this is true most of the time to some degree, it feels especially true now.
In general, people tend to struggle with uncertainty and the unknown. We avoid the unknown with schedules and routines, which can help create a feeling of emotional safety. During times of structure and “normal” activity, we manage our emotions in lots of ways. Sometimes we use our bodies, sometimes we distract ourselves. We find what works and repeat it. But these strategies tend to be rather rigid and routine-dependent. If you’ve always got another email to answer, or another dish to wash, it’s easier to push aside feelings you’d rather not feel—like loneliness, worry, or inauthenticity. When the routine falls away, and time is unscheduled and vast, it’s easy for the space of uncertainty to dredge up deep feelings—both old ones and new.
It is often part of the process of therapy, at some point or another, to find more psychological flexibility and adaptability—in essence to find ways to be more open to and accepting of uncertainty and the unknown. This process can help identify some of those deeper, bigger feelings, and hopefully provide a space to process and release them. In therapeutic work, there is usually lots of support and preparation around this. Your therapist sits in the unknown with you. You are not alone.
For many, the sudden onset of this pandemic did not allow much time to prepare, emotionally or otherwise. The very nature of things has meant the physical loss of existing supports, and made seeking new ones extraordinarily difficult.
Yet, in this time of crisis, without our normal routines and schedules, we remain ourselves. We are stripped of our routines and defenses, but here we are. This can be difficult, for a variety of individual reasons, to tolerate. To have a knowable end in sight would serve as a temporary salve against the pain of unknowing, but it seems that such a date is more elusive than we might hope. So what is there to be done? How can we stay in our houses for an unspecified amount of time, surrounded on all sides by uncertainty?
The challenge and the process will, of course, be different for everyone. Those who were experiencing systemic impacts of marginality and oppression prior to COVID-19 will continue to feel the pandemic’s effects disproportionately, and those whose jobs push them into the frontline of the pandemic will most likely experience more complex trauma than those who are able to shelter at home. The context of our unknown does impact our experience.
But we all have the capacity to become more flexible, and more tolerant of uncertainty. We all have the ability to handle those big, deep feelings. One small step toward this is recognizing how you’re feeling in the present moment—both physically and emotionally—in a non-judgmental way. The last part is important. We are quick to judge our feelings, to evaluate them. Think: I shouldn’t feel that, I should be happy/grateful/fine. But tuning in to how we feel in any given moment does not have to involve changing anything. It can be a process of observation.
“Nothing you’re feeling is either good or bad. It's human. Your present feelings are a normal response to an unpredictable, uncertain experience.”
During this pandemic, you might feel angry about missed opportunities, relieved to have had an excuse to leave a job or a relationship, disappointed about cancelled events, stressed about money, afraid of illness, anxious about loved ones and friends, glad to finally have time to exercise, guilty for not yet being sick or for enjoying being home. You might feel grief at varying levels of intensity for people and things lost. You might feel fear, wish things were different, or regret things left undone. You might feel numbness, or nothing at all. These feelings may manifest in your body as tension, hollowness, pain, tightness, or buoyancy.
Nothing you’re feeling is either good or bad. It's human. Your present feelings are a normal response to an unpredictable, uncertain experience.
Despite all the things that have changed in the past month, these emotions and their physical manifestations—our inner lives—are still happening, and we must honor them, just as they are. In the midst of the unknown, here we are. Sitting in the moment with your feelings does not make uncertainty or the unknown immediately bearable, but it does realign you to the present. You cannot know what will happen, or when, but you can know how you feel or where you feel it, right this instant. In that instant of knowing, there is a kind of power that makes uncertainty less overwhelming.
Feeling your feelings in an embodied way takes practice. It can be difficult and painful, but also profound and enriching. I am not advocating, in the midst of a global pandemic, for everyone to seek enormous emotional revelations or catharsis or healing. Not everyone will be able to process a collective trauma as it unfolds, or to single-handedly overcome their relationship issues or squash anxiety and depression.
The work I’m describing starts with the smallest acknowledgements, with brief moments of sincerity and acceptance directed inward. Try to feel your feelings in the moment. I’m tired. I’m angry. I’m relieved. I’m hopeful. Two or three words is enough. Wherever you are is enough. With practice, these small acknowledgements can connect you to a sense of agency, power, and self-knowledge.
Even in the midst of the unknown, you can try to know yourself.
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We’ve also created some new online therapy options in order to support our community in response to COVID-19.
Anna Kim is an Associate Clinical Social Worker, a writer, and an adventurer. Anna works with individuals, intimate relationships, families, and groups to support growth and change. She is especially interested in grief & loss, identity & authenticity, and attachment, but appreciates all the infinite, complicated parts of being alive.
Anna can also be contacted directly at anna@kindman.co