Better Lives: A Year of Covid — How Do We Handle Feelings of Helplessness?

"Things are difficult, out there!"

It's a phrase I hear more often from counseling clients these days than ever before.

It occurred to me earlier today that it has now been a year since Covid-19 first showed up here in our part of the Pacific Northwest. We live not far from where "patient zero" in the USA was allegedly diagnosed. Certainly, "patient zero" in the the state of Washington.

Our son — who was staying with us last winter — went to see his sister in Seattle at the end of last February, right about the time roughly 30 cases were confirmed at a nursing home. They went to dinner and then to a movie right in the neighboorhood where that nursing home was located, and the staff and residents would go shopping and eating.

Two weeks later (after he'd returned here) he, my husband and I all had a severe flu with muscle aches and upset stomach that lasted for 4-5 days, after which we all felt weak for a couple of weeks. It almost felt like the flu and food poisoning, at the same time.

At the time, we just attributed it to "a bad case of the flu."

At least 6-7 months later, during a routine doctor's visit, my husband mentioned to our doctor that he'd had the flu back in February, but otherwise felt healthy.

The only "problem" with that was that the doctor insisted that there were no cases of the flu in the area at that time!

Of course, the post-fact tests aren't very good, so we can only speculate as to whether all three of us had a case of Covid-19 and recovered. Regardless, it was a very unpleasant experience, even if we escaped the respiratory difficulties so often reported.

What we — and many of my clients — are (and have been) experiencing is a sense of helplessness.

We're stuck here in our homes most of the time, and we can't go anywhere or do many of the "out" things we normally enjoy, and even the simple business of going to the supermarket comes with a subtext of risk because we could be exposed to something deadly.

And now it has been a year of this strange "half life."

In truth, there is not all that much we can do, aside from take all reasonable precautions when we do go out, and then remember to have gratitude for the good things we do have.

I might sound like a "broken record" by now, but gratitude is one of the most important things we have, to overcome emotions like helplessness. Helplessness come from the feeling that we have no control over anything in our lives, or anything that's going to happen... and with gratitude for "What Is," we can suddenly identify things that are positive, and that we have control over.

So practice gratitude!

Thanks for reading, and Bright Blessings to all!

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