How to Cope

Finding light (and sanity) when things feel dark

Friends:

If you have had a day like I’ve had, you may be feeling pretty dark and anxious right now. I’ve been thinking a lot about resilience today—and, more specifically, about coping strategies. I thought I would share a few of them with you. Regardless of whether you are American, and regardless of how you feel about the US election results, I hope that you might find them useful when you encounter your own days that feel dark.

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Protecting My Brain

I’ve decided to set an intention to do my best not to let toxic people (both those whom I know personally and those whom I do not) take up space in my mind. I have spent way too much time over the past few years allowing people whom I do not admire, whose values I do not believe in, capture my time and attention, and that needs to stop—for one very simple reason: my time on earth is limited. There will come a day when my heart will stop beating. Until that moment comes, I want to do everything I can to focus on the people and things I love, on being a positive role model for my daughter, and on bringing love, community, and joy to the people around me. 

To that end, I am putting even more work than ever into:

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Controlling My Inputs

The number one source of anxiety for me these days is the news, which is why I made a conscious decision to avoid the news all day—and it helped. I intend to continue to limit the time I spend consuming it. If necessary, I’ll use Freedom, or the Brick, or Unpluq to help me strenghten my own boundaries. Depending on your own habits, I’d also recommend restricting the amount of time you’re spending engaging with social media. And please, please, please — no matter where you fall on the political spectrum! — turn off notifications for the news.

Personally, even while I’m cutting back on my news consumption, I’m also making a point to sign up for paid subscriptions to news organizations that I trust. I went to school for journalism, and while I never became a traditional reporter myself, I know how hard the job is and how financially strapped even the most respectable organizations have become. Even if I’m trying to avoid consuming too much news for my own sanity, I want to support the free press.

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Staying Grounded

I’ve had two experiences in the past six months where I felt like I was waking up in a nightmare. In both situations, I’ve had moments where I’m lost in my mind in a state of extreme mental distress—and then something mundane happens that pulls me out of my head and back into real life. Sometimes, real life is annoying (e.g. laundry). But other times, these mundane experiences are beautiful, like the sound of my daughter’s laugh, or the crisp morning air, or the changing leaves, or the feeling of our dog’s fur, or the autumn afternoon light. They’re also very grounding: suddenly, I’m out of my head, and back in my body and my senses—and no matter how distressing my thoughts have been, the actual physical moment I’m in feels stable, sometimes even tinged with gratitude and joy.

Whenever this happens, I’m reminded of a quote from mindfulness expert Jon Kabat Zinn: “As long as you’re breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel.”

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Noticing and Appreciating Beauty

And speaking of recognizing these mundane moments of beauty (and using them to pull yourself out of a mental abyss), that’s another tool I’ve been playing around with.

As longtime subscribers of this newsletter know, I am a big fan of the practice of noticing and appreciating delight. But on days when even delight seems like too big of a lift, I invite you to experiment with a slightly different exercise: noticing and appreciating daily moments of beauty.

This was an idea shared with me by Dr.Jennifer Aaker (a professor at Stanford) and Jenna Abdou (a podcast host and writer at Fast Company), who have designed a four-week experience to help people to learn how to use beauty as a principle to get into flow, reframe challenges, and create beautiful memories. Their suggestions have really resonated with me, and I thought I would share an excerpt from one of their emails with you as well:

Close your eyes and take a moment to reflect on a recent beautiful moment. 

Here are a few of ours…

• Walking through majestic gardens, holding hands with my 2.5 year old ‘niece,’ when, unprompted, she purely said: ‘This is so fun.’ I was so touched to be playing the same older sister role that her mom has played for me. — Jenna 

• Having an epiphany at the same time as a friend, and in that moment, the solution to a personal challenge became abundantly clear. It gave me shivers. — Jennifer 

As they point out, “Beauty offers the robustness to describe the fullness of the human experience—the light and the darkness—and can be a compass to actualize it. . . .  Seeking beauty empowers us to discover meaning in challenges.”

They ask:

What if beauty isn’t solely an experience? 

What if it is a principle to guide our decisions and behavior? 

To me, this feels like a subtle act of resistance.

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Laughing

Maybe not right this second. But laughter—especially when shared—is a form of joy (and rebellion). Everyone could use more of it.

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Identifying What We Can Control—And What We Can’t

I don’t have a religious background or regular spiritual practice, but I’ve found myself repeating a secularized version of the Serenity Prayer to myself today. I have a feeling I’m going to be using it a lot, and I offer it to you as well:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

And, lastly:

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Connecting With Other People

When we feel anxious and stressed, it’s tempting to curl up in a ball and retreat — I was amazed by how few people were making eye contact on the street today. But sometimes, our instincts lead us astray: when we feel at our worst, sometimes human connection is what we need the most. This can come in many forms, from reaching out to a friend or loved one, to, I dunno, approaching three random older women you encounter while walking your dog and asking them, with basically no preamble, if they might be willing to give you a hug. (That’s of course a purely hypothetical example, though theoretically if you were to try this, you might end up feeling better for a moment!)

Seriously: humans need to feel connected, for our happiness, for our health, and for the survival of our societies.¹ That’s why, despite the fact that I often get scared of getting too personal on the internet, I felt compelled to write something to you tonight. I hope that it’s useful, regardless of your politics or nationality—and I hope that you’ll join me in trying, to the best of our abilities, and regardless of our beliefs or circumstances, to all be sources of light.

To scrolling less and living—and loving—more,

Catherine

PS: Speaking of laughter — I realized that I’ve already written a newsletter called “How to Cope,” but it was about household messes. Which are perhaps not the type of mess that is on your mind right now. But if you need a laugh, here it is:

How to cope when life's a mess*

1. If you want to read more about this, I highly recommend Vivek Murthy’s book, Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World.