the times | Tuesday October 13 2020 1GT 3
times
Don’t feel guilty
In a recent survey by the life insurer
Vitality, 58 per cent of respondents
said that the pandemic had a positive
impact in forcing them to reassess
what’s important in life, such as
spending more time outdoors. It is
not uncommon, though, for people to
feel bad about the upsides that have
resulted from it.
“I’ve noticed a lot of people feel
embarrassed and shameful about the
fact that they are enjoying the changes
Covid-19 has brought,” says Jacqueline
Hurst, a life coach.
How you feel about your feelings
is described by psychologists as
a meta-emotion, and a study in the
American Psychological Association’s
journal Emotion suggests that we are
more prone to experiencing them
when we have time to pay attention
to our thoughts, as we do during the
pandemic. If you are feeling guilty
about feeling happy, physically well
and mentally positive, it’s a negative
meta-emotion and needs addressing.
“A lot of people are feeling guilty
that they actually enjoy working from
home and don’t have to endure a long
commute, that they still have a job, or
haven’t been directly affected by
coronavirus when others they know
are clearly struggling with any or one
of these things,” Wild says. “The key
thing is to recognise that this guilt is
misplaced and to remind yourself of
what you might have done that is
helpful to others.”
Hurst says that guilt and shame “are
energetically and emotionally heavy
feelings to carry around” and that we
should remind ourselves that we can
choose how we feel. “If you feel joyful
about something, let that be the
overriding feeling you choose. You
don’t have to choose to feel guilty.”a psychotherapist, counsellor and the
author of Navigating Grief. “Grief is
about so much more than someone
dying as it can relate to anything that
has happened in our lives. At the
moment there is grief not just for
the loved ones we may have lost to
coronavirus, but we are also grieving
for the lives we have left behind and
for what might have been.”
A sense that the world is changing
produces a gamut of emotions that
culminate in grief. Added to that,
anticipatory grief — the worry about
what might happen in the future —
is a fuel for anxiety. “It is helpful to
remind ourselves that the loss of
normality we are experiencing is
temporary and that the hardships
will pass,” Peters says.
Talking about grief is an essential
first step. “Expressing how you are
feeling to others helps you to progress
towards accepting the situation and
not blaming yourself for anything to
do with it,” Peters says. “Don’t use the
words ‘if only’.
“Working through any grief is a
painful process, but there are always
positives to be taken from the
experience and we should look to
what we may have learnt about
ourselves and our ability to cope
with the current situation.”Try a new routine
You are not alone if you feel frustrated
by everything and everyone at the
moment. “We are living in a
frustrating situation,” Wild says. “It
has polarised people, and the fact not
everyone agrees whether to wear
a facemask or to socially distance can
be frustrating in itself.”
Give yourself a break, she says,
and create a new routine. “If watching
the news is a trigger for feelings offrustration, then limit yourself to the
headlines or nothing at all for a few
days,” she says. “Be kind to yourself.”
Mitchell says that he has been
struck by the extent to which a good
structure to daily life can influence
emotions over the past few months.
“But it must be a structure that works
for you,” he says. “Some people who
work from home need a clear
boundary at the end of a working day,
others don’t. Make decisions based on
what makes you happy and you will
achieve the balance necessary for
renewed energy.”Don’t ignore anger
Shouting at the TV screen or lashing
out at anything or anyone is an
outward explosion of underlying
stress. The worst thing you can do is
try to suppress it. “Anger is like a
spring inside our bodies and it won’t
go away unless we recognise and
manage it,” says Alexander Ingram,
a therapist at the Priory Hospital in
north London. “There’s a lot of angry
feeling at the moment, but it does not
need to be damaging.”
Wild says that the first thing to do
is recognise what or who is making
you angry and to write a letter to them
that will remain unsent. “Think about
who you are hurting by feeling so
angry — if you are angry with the
government or your former employer,
you are not hurting them, just yourself
and those around you,” she says.
“Then think about what you can do
with all of that anger energy, targeting
it towards something more positive.”
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t
vent your feelings.
“You can express anger without
causing distress and you can deal with
it by engaging in distraction activities
such as exercise,” Wild says.Triggers
for
irritability
include
having too
little sleep
or a long
to-do list
why it’s OK to lose control
COVER: GETTY IMAGES. BELOW: PLAINPICTURE
You look like a cultured individual.Why, thank you. I try.
But you could look more cultured.
How? Should I start wearing a beret?
No, then you’ll just look like Emily
in Paris.What does that mean?
The opposite of what you are
trying to achieve. No, what you
need is a selfie stick — and Google’s
new filter.Filter for what? Internet spam?
No, your face. A filter is software
that changes an image, in this
case turning your selfie into a
work of art.Oh dear. It’s not going to give me,
er, contouring, is it? I always think
that looks rather frightening.No. The Google Arts & Culture
app has a filter that transforms
one’s face into famous paintings.
Think Johannes Vermeer’s Girl
with a Pearl Earring and revered
self-portraits by Frida Kahlo and
Vincent van Gogh.Sounds weird.
Why? It’s fun!
I am all for appreciating Kahlo’s
work, but I’m not sure I want to
look like her. I only just got rid of
my monobrow. You can spare me
the tache too — I couldn’t pull it off.But everyone wants to look like
Kahlo!Do they?
Millennials do. They live for merch
with her face on. She’s an icon
these days.To be clear, she was an icon before
twentysomethings started putting
her face on their T-shirts and mugs.Try telling them that.
No thanks, I’ll get cancelled. But
back to this app. There is one
painting I can relate to right now.Which one?
Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
Hannah Rogers
The lowdown
Frida Kahlo