Are you in a COVID Funk?
By Carly Fleming, M.Ed. RP
Registered Psychotherapist
Feeling funky? COVID has taken the natural mood lifters from our life.
It’s winter in Canada. Winter is tough at the best of times but winter in the midst of COVID lockdown feels harsh and unfamiliar. Many people are feeling down, stuck, and unmotivated. I know I am. I’ve been working through this ‘funk’ with many of my clients over the past couple of months and together we’ve begun to describe this phenomenon.
In life before COVID, most of us had numerous mood lifters integrated into our lives.
We didn’t necessarily label them as things that made our mood feel lighter and more positive but that’s what these things were doing. Consider a blah Wednesday afternoon pre-COVID where the weather was cold and you were feeling unmotivated.
And then think about how your mood was lifted when you got a text from a friend asking what restaurant you wanted to head to on Friday night for your monthly night-out. You would find yourself thinking ahead to Friday evening with hopefulness or maybe thinking back to the last time you went out with this friend and how much fun you had together.
Or try this one – it’s a quiet Sunday evening in January with not much to look forward to in the coming weeks. But then you get an email notification telling you that your favourite band is coming to town next month. You imagine yourself getting dressed up, heading to the concert and enjoying an amazing night. So you eagerly buy yourself some tickets.
These are just two examples of situations that naturally lift our mood. Everyone has different examples but they usually include spending time with friends and family, planning ahead for vacations and special events, and spending time doing the things that you love doing. In our current COVID situation it’s likely that you aren’t doing any of these things. It’s been many months since you’ve done them and many more until you’ll do them again. The lack of these natural mood lifters is taking a toll on our mental health.
So what can we do about it?
Well… there’s not much we can ‘do’. We can’t change the pandemic, most of us don’t want to blatantly disregard regulations and we can’t move to New Zealand (oh but how we wish we could!). But we can treat ourselves with self-compassion, we can make room for the feelings of sadness, grief, irritation, disappointment, anger, etc., we can make efforts to get out of the ‘funk’ and we can hold on tightly to our hopes for a future where we can feel better.
Here are some tips:
Practice some self-compassion.
Imagine that you are sitting with a friend who has just lost most of the things that make her feel happy, light and hopeful. Imagine what you might say to her. Write those things down. You might say “This is really tough, I’m proud of how you’re dealing with this” or “That is really shitty. Are you ok?” or “I’m here for you – how can I help?”. Now say these things out loud to yourself. Give yourself the compassion you would give a friend and see how it feels to utter these words out loud.
Make room for your feelings.
It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be sad. It’s totally natural to be irritated. In an attempt to be strong and capable most of us stuff our feelings down because they aren’t convenient and certainly aren’t pretty. But one year into the pandemic and all of these stuffed down feelings are starting to feel heavy. Lay them down for a while so you don’t have to carry them. Sit with your feelings, journal about them or talk about them. You could even shake them out, dance them out, scream them out (into a pillow maybe). Make a practice of doing this and you will feel so much lighter.
Make some effort.
When we are unmotivated and frustrated it can seem like there’s nothing that will make us feel better. But sometimes we just need to get a little creative. Are there any hobbies you can take up inside your home that you’re interested in? There are so many things happening online right now that the sky is the limit! Maybe you used to play guitar or paint or knit or cook but the busy-ness of life made it hard to fit these things in. This may be the time to hop back into that hobby or find yourself a new one. Even though it feels like Netflix is the only answer, set aside one evening a week and see what sparks your interest!
Hold out for some hope.
When it’s hard to know when we’ll be able to do the things we love again, it’s hard to remain hopeful. But it IS possible. Hop online and search for a vacation destination that you hope to travel to. Create a mock itinerary, check the weather at your destination and stop to imagine yourself there. Text your friends who you haven’t seen in a while and share a plan for the next time you are together – where you will go, what you will see, how it will feel. You could also set a goal for the future that you need to work to achieve. How many hiking trails can you visit this year? How many steps can you take this week? How about setting a fitness goal that will take some time to work towards?
These tips won’t get you out of the ‘funk’ completely – we’ll need the restrictions to lift and our natural mood lifting activities to resume in order to feel like our old selves again. But with some effort, some attention and a shift in perspective, maybe we can prevent this ‘funk’ from turning into depression and hopelessness. Give it a try.
How we can help
Everyone needs someone to talk to.
If you’re finding it hard to get out of your ‘funk’ and you think you may benefit from some counselling, please get in touch. Regardless of how the pandemic has affected you, there is no wrong time to reach out for support. If you would like to know more about whether online counselling at everwell is right for you, book a free 30 minute consultation and we can talk about it.