Change or accept

It’s a challenging time for all of us and it’s understandable for typical life stresses to feel totally overwhelming in the current climate.

The news, radio, social media, friends, family... It’s very difficult to escape the never ending topic of COVID. But it certainly helps to bring some grounded clarity to our day to day approach to life.

If we can’t change it, we should consider accepting it.

Changing and accepting are the two logical solutions to any difficult situation. Accepting in this situation doesn’t mean we have to enjoy or surrender to things we don’t like - more so we don’t challenge or fight things which we can’t control. We become accepting, passive and at peace and understand that the situation will pass.

Struggling against things we have little control over only amplifies our negative thinking. One emotion feeds the next emotion. For example our anxiety about COVID can easily lead to feelings of frustration about COVID. If we experience days of frustration we can easily feel moments of depression. We may feel guilty about our depression when we consider life isn’t that bad - but then we may feel sad about our guilt, anger about our sadness, and so on.

But when we accept the situation for what it is, our ‘struggle switch’ is off and we are better positioned to manage our emotions, and the impact of COVID on our mental health.