Please Make It Stop!

“Please make it stop!” my client Alexis cried in frustration on the Zoom screen.

“I’m so done. My family always told me that life never gives us more than we can handle, but that’s WRONG! I can’t handle anymore,” she said, as her face seemed to fill with despair.

As a therapist, I’m hearing a variation of this from nearly everyone I speak with—kids, parents, the elderly, and especially nurses and ER doctors. I’m hearing depression, exhaustion, anger, hopelessness, denial, and despair. At this point in the pandemic, many of us just don’t want to think about it anymore. We are all worn down. We all have more than we can handle. And we want relief.

So, let me start with this: today’s newsletter is a no-shame, no-blame, no-judgment zone. I’m with you. There is no way we “should” feel about this wave of the pandemic, and no right way to be with what seems like an endless nightmare. Instead, the question that I’m wrestling with, as I speak with my clients, colleagues and friends, is: How do we respond skillfully? 

Here are three possible answers.

1.  This is the Way Things Are

Obviously, the omicron wave is not something any of us wanted or even expected. We thought we knew where things were going, and they took an unexpected turn. Our ancient philosophers from both the West and East tell us that this is the way things are. Heraclitus, the Greek sage, taught that the only constant thing in life is change. Early Buddhism taught that impermanence is a characteristic of everything that exists, and that this could be seen directly in meditation.

And yet, our human brains are wired to want life to be predictable. When confronted with the unwanted truth of impermanence, our minds rebel and our nervous systems become agitated. This creates another omnipresent characteristic of our experience: what Buddhists call dukkha, usually translated as “suffering” but perhaps better rendered as “unsatisfactoriness.” Joseph Goldstein has said that this truth of existence is much vaster than we ever imagined. The collision between how life is and how we want it to be creates dukkha. The pandemic, in all its variations, has made that clear.

Just seeing this reality of life, unwanted and unvarnished, can be an important step toward more resilience and happiness.  It’s not a pleasant fact of life, but it is a fact of life, not some big mistake that you should have personally avoided.  If you’re off-balance right now, you’re not doing life wrong.  You’re seeing it clearly.

2.  And Yet, It’s Different

One way our minds can make difficult situations worse is by creating stories about them.  One that’s come up a lot lately is “I’ve seen this movie before. Here we are, 2020 all over AGAIN.” (Your version may also have an expletive or two).  But is this really true?  Narayan Helen Liebenson (who is featured on the Ten Percent app) has taught that when we use the word again we are not fully in the present moment. Think about it. Just as no two snowflakes are ever the same, no two moments are the same either. So, you might look for what is different now.  You might want to try, “how amazing we now have tailored vaccines based on protein sequences!”  Or you might reflect on how you’re different. This wave is a sequel, not a remake.

Relatedly, try to look for things that are unexpected. The Zen teacher and scholar Stephen Batchelor once wrote in Ten Percent Weekly that “this moment is strange and wondrous.” It takes some effort but see if you can open to this new way of seeing and thinking. For example, today, as I was out in the cold, dark, gray New England rain for a walk, I was startled by some radiant, yellow forsythia blossoms (usually a spring flower). It was indeed wondrous. Keeping an eye open for the unexpected can interrupt our habitual patterns that often make a hard situation worse.  

3.  And… Pivot

Decades ago, I was in a dance class where the instructor was teaching us to pivot, which is basically turning around on your toes and shifting the weight of your body.  (Here’s what I mean.)  Dancers do this with grace and style.  We did not. So, by the end of the lesson the entire class was roaring in laughter. The teacher would clap his hands and shout: “Change.” We would turn. And then a pause. “Change,” and then another pivot. Sometimes we stumbled and then got back up again.

For me, the pivot move has become a metaphor for finding equanimity during Omicron, as we learn to shift and change with humor, and even grace.  So I took my rusty old pivot out for a spin! Even though I was thrown off over and over, I found I could regain my balance plus a new perspective. I recommend you try it with kids, family or friends. The more ridiculous, the better.

Whatever you do, make sure to do it with compassion for yourself and others, especially those for whom this phase may be more disruptive than it is for you.  There is no simple solution, even though we wanted one. This is how life is.