Can you allow yourself to feel?
By: Tal Lee Anderman
Tags: Empathy, Highly Sensitive People, Anxiety, Covid 19, Vulnerability

Photo by Conor Brown

I don’t know about you, but these past few months have been heavy, and I’ve experienced just about every feeling on the Stanford Feeling Wheel (yes that’s a thing, and yes we learn this in business school).

I know I’m not alone.

Six weeks ago, I didn’t know how to Shelter-in-Place. Today, hundreds of millions of Americans are in quarantine, and nobody knows how or when it will end.

One month ago, I knew very few people looking for a job. Now many of the most talented people I know are unemployed and unsure of what is next.

Two week ago, New York experienced one of the first days of linear growth of coronavirus cases, after weeks of exponential growth overran the city’s health care system, medical professionals and supply of personal protective equipment.

Consciously or not, this intense time has shifted how we show up to life.

There is no denying these past few weeks have been hard — bizarrely, all encompassingly hard.

The intensity has shifted our physical life — our jobs, childcare, hobbies and health, to name a few. Consciously or not, it has also shifted how we show up to life.

If you’re anything like me, the global scale of suffering and uncertainty we’re experiencing has created an overwhelming need to help. To fix. To make things right. To ease the suffering. But…

I ruled out a medical profession at age four, when I gagged as my godmother shared stories of her emergency room nursing experiences.

I don’t manufacture healthcare equipment, or understand the bureaucratic nuances of applying for small business government loans.

And yet, like many highly sensitive people, I am flooded by the need of the world right now, and I want to do something — but what?

There’s so much to feel in today’s world, it’s overwhelming. It feels easier to just keep doing.

According to psychologist and New York Times best selling author Harriet Lerner in her book The Dance of Connection, this need comes from my personal pattern of responding to anxiety: I am a classic over functioner.

Faced with a challenge, I switch into fixing mode, taking control, attacking the to-do list, micro-managing, and offering supposedly helpful advice.

In the first few weeks of the pandemic, I was like a caged animal. I paced the streets of my neighborhood anxiously trying to get a read for the situation and where I could plug in. I donated my protective equipment, and actively notified friends, and random Facebook acquaintances, of donation points. I donated money to people in need that I knew, and people in need that I didn’t know. I found websites delivering meals to healthcare workers, and to the homeless. I spent hours pouring over CharityNavigator trying to pick the “best” charity for my birthday fundraiser.

Suffice to say, I was over functioning the heck out of this situation, and I couldn’t sit still.

I’m in good company, as Brene Brown describes in a recent Unlocking Us Podcast.

(in case you’re unsure, I’m obsessed with this podcast. Think Glennon Doyle, Alicia Keys, and grief expert David Kessler, which may or may not have inspired my last blog post).

Faced with a traumatic family illness, Brene immediately went into “fix it” mode. She took over, barking orders to family members and burying herself in errands. Her sisters staged an intervention. The moment Brene was forced to stop fixing, she broke down, dropping her to-do list and sobbing inconsolably in the hospital waiting room. She had finally let the moment truly sink in.

Her sister’s intervention pierced Brene’s vulnerability armor, and decades of “doing” rather than “feeling” came flooding in.

There’s so much to feel in today’s world, it’s overwhelming. It feels easier to just keep doing.

Understanding our behaviors as patterned responses to anxiety, rather than deep truths about who we are or the world, can empower us.

If you’re reading this thinking, “not my problem! I’ve been sitting on my couch for six weeks, happily eating my way across the Milk Bar cookie menu while sobbing through episodes of Anne with an E” (two of my favorite quarantine discoveries, FWIW), I’ve got news for you.

There’s a pattern of anxiety response behavior for you, too. It’s called under functioning.

Under functioners invite others to take over. They pull back, plead for assistance, hide, or zone out. They often become the focus of others’ concern and worry, and are labeled fragile, irresponsible, uncaring or plain lazy.

Under functioning is an abdication of control.

If the world isn’t going to show up for me, I’m not going to show up for it. This is too much. I don’t know how. I can’t. I don’t care.

Once upon a time, under functioners could hide under the covers. Now, we numb the feelings with things like TV (so good!), work (ugh), or alcohol and sweets (my favorite).

My point in sharing all of this is not to point blame or call you out. It’s actually the opposite.

Understanding our behaviors as patterned responses to anxiety, rather than deep truths about who we are or the world, can empower us. It gives us agency over these situations, and our reactions to them.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” — Fred Rogers

Courage is required to be with our feelings right now, rather than run or hide from them.

It’s uncomfortable as heck to feel the grief, need and uncertainty of this time.

Whether through under or over functioning, many of us are accustomed to cruising through life pretending we’re untouchable. COVID-19 is like a giant freeway billboard every 500 feet reminding us that simply isn’t true.

We are vulnerable as human beings. But vulnerability is also the birthplace of connection. Of love, belonging, courage, empathy, creativity, and joy.

Our ability to step into this collective vulnerability is such an important opportunity of this pandemic. It means realizing that no one is immune, and that that means we’re all in this together.

Vulnerability is the kindness of a neighbor picking up groceries, celebrities using their social media to raise money, awareness or our mood. It’s the colleague who calls you after working hours just to check in. The friend who sends funny memes to get you through the day.

It’s the willingness to be with ourselves, right now. To stop doing or hiding, and simply feel.

Can you allow yourself to just feel right now?