How to Deal With Feeling Out of Control While in Isolation

When your entire planet is in quarantine, it is quite understandable to feel helpless. In today's episode you'll hear a quick tip on how to frame your thinking to help cope with this struggle and lower stress in your home right now (including a wisdom bomb I learned from Mind Valley's @littlehumans).

TRANSCRIPT
Do you feel like your cooped up or caged in during this COVID-19 pandemic? Are you itching to get back to life as it was when you had… freedom, when you had control? I hate to admit that I used to be extremely invested in controlling everything in my life. I had to do lists within my to do list. I had minute by minute schedules within my daily, weekly, monthly and yearly calendars. Yes. Crazy, I know. Learning to let go of some of that control was forced upon me when having kids and then again when my family moved to Ireland for 2 years.

This lack of control can drive you crazy. It can cause more chaos in your home which will cause more stress which will lead to extremely frustrating situations. Today’s quick tip is going to be about how to cope with this lack of control during these uncertain times and a way to frame your thinking to help accept hat this is a difficult phase much of the world is in.

Before I get into this quick tip, I wanted to share something I learned earlier this week from joining in on a call hosted by Little Humans. If you don’t already know about Little Humans, this is an amazing resource for parents and teachers. And especially right now, they are hosting free parenting coaching calls on zoom for anyone to join and get amazing tidbits of parenting wisdom. I stumbled across them on instagram @littlehumans I highly recommend you go check them out!  

Ok so a big takeaway I had from the call was that the lack of predictability we are currently facing is causing a lot of anxiety. This anxiety is making us want to clench on to as much control as possible. Since there is so much we can not control in this new reality we end up spiraling and really getting to a dark place. It can manifest itself in different ways. You might be taking it out on the kids, or you may not have motivation to keep up with your work. This feeling of helplessness turns into an obsession for control. Since control is a sparse resource right now, we need to cope another way. 

So today’s quick tip is on how to cope when you feel like things are out of control. Think about what is making you anxious and really reflect on it. Are you anxious that your child won't do well in school now that it has moved to being completely remote? Are you worried that you can’t simultaneously continue your job and caring for the children?  

How does this anxiety affect your need to control the situation and is controlling it really going to help your family? Once you’ve addressed what anxieties you have try rationalizing through them or accepting them as they are. Doing this wont necessarily give you the control you want back but it will help you deal with it better and in turn help your family cope better. 

If there are specific anxieties you can pinpoint like missing your alone time, explaining social isolation to your kids or dealing with the new reality of working and parenting make sure to check out previous episodes for quick tips on dealing with those.