Salut!
I wanted to offer a follow-up to my
recent TYSG update!
Last time, I discussed the difference between pain and suffering: pain being in profound abundance at the moment and not in our control, and suffering being an unskillful reaction to pain that worsens it but is within our control.
In brief, the moral of my last post is that our task, as much as we are able, is to NOT do suffering.
Under these particular circumstances, this will take some creativity. That is for several reasons:
--Almost none of us are accustomed to coping with this level of pain, so we are inexperienced with this task,
--Being in more pain than usual depletes our energy and resilience, making it more difficult to do the work of coping effectively, and
--Due to the nature of the pandemic, many/most of the resources we would normally use to cope are not available to us, and will be unavailable indefinitely.
All of this sucks. It is in and of itself yet another source of pain. However, it would be doing suffering to throw our hands up and declare ourselves powerless to change how we feel or to take care of ourselves.
One very small way in which I've been trying to get myself to NOT do suffering arose from my realization that, early on, it felt like all I was doing all the time was either thinking about the pandemic or talking about the pandemic. Going on social media in an attempt to find some diversion from the pandemic only revealed that literally every single corner of the internet seemed to be incapable of focusing on anything but the pandemic. It felt like there was absolutely no reprieve from being constantly bombarded from within and without with it.
I wondered: what would it take to
purposefully think about something else?
In answer to this question, I had the simple but mercifully somewhat effective idea of coming up with conversation-starter questions. I've been posting them to social media and sharing them in a family group chat daily since the night after I came up with the idea and Husband and I came up with a bunch of options.
Just like last week's coping suggestion, these questions have a few basic parameters:
1) No questions in any way related to the pandemic. (This is hopefully obvious?)
2) Questions are generally positively valenced (e.g., only ask about least favorites, for example, when the answers are likely to be amusing or low stakes).
3) Steer clear of overly cliché questions that risk prompting only rote answers (e.g., try to avoid questions like, "What's your favorite color?").
4) As a complement to 3), some weirdness/creativity is definitely encouraged. This has the dual positive outcome of hopefully amusing people and also making it more likely that people consciously engage in thinking about and answering the question.
5) Whenever applicable, add "and why?" to increase mental engagement with the question. Follow up with people as needed when they don't answer this part of the question.
This activity has been helpful in a lot of pleasant ways. Coming up with the questions has given me and Husband something to focus our creative energy on and is a fun mental puzzle. Posting them has given me the opportunity to connect with people from across several domains of my life (remember, what social media used to be actually kind of great for?). People's responses have generally been fun and entertaining! There have also been a few people who have noted that they enjoy the questions even if they don't always participate, which also gives me some small hope that they're having the intended effect on maybe more people than just those showing up to share their answers: maybe they're providing even just a tiny breather from the constant anxiety, sadness, and helplessness of this time.
Here's where 4) is often really important: coming up with questions that involve a little fantasy is intentional. We all need a little escape. Why not create a tiny bit of that for ourselves, together?
And now, some examples! I've been noticing some emerging themes as I've now been doing this for a few weeks.
Theme One: Food
Includes: a good example of what I'm talking about in 2)
Theme Two: Entertainment
I mean... obviously I would veer toward that.
Theme Three: Mindfulness of Our Environment
These are a subtle bid for people to have a chance to have a
positive emotional response to being at home.
Plus, see an example of a 5)-style "and why?"
Theme Four: Inventive Fantasy
Some primo examples of 4). These don't always get the most responses,
but the responses people give are fun and they're really fun to come up with.
Husband gets credit for several of these.
This is admittedly a small and humble way that I've tried to take charge of the contents of my mind and actively not do suffering, but honestly, it's one of the best strategies I've found so far...
...other than hanging out with my child, which is the greatest diversion I never realized I'd so deeply need.
I hope, like me, these give you just a little brief breath of relief.
{Heart}
