During this pandemic, if we have not personally experienced grave illness, job loss, or the loss of loved ones, we are at least experiencing a moodiness that is unprecedented. Boredom, anxiety, fear, and joy careen through my mind on an hourly basis. I don’t think I am alone in this!
Confinement is tough. Some of us are chomping at the bit, desperate for privacy, more space, more freedoms. Some of us feel isolated or lonely whether we are actually alone in our homes or not. Some of us experience ungroundedness as we’ve left for other spaces or homes that are not fully our own. And some of us are adapting to this confinement reasonably well.
Even in a gilded cage - where the typical best case scenario is that family members can work remotely, and food and supplies are procured with consistent effort - individuals in the same household may adapt differently. Beyond our individual circumstances, how we adapt has a great deal to do with our ability to get perspective of our specific current situation and to prioritize our emotional functioning. And this is where mental endurance comes into play.
Mental endurance requires the practice of disciplining some aspects of our thought process in order to deal with daily or longer term challenges. While we cannot control which specific thoughts arise in our brain, or what circumstances befall us, we can organize ourselves in response to those thoughts/circumstances. For example, if an anxious thought comes to mind such as “We are going to be in confinement for two years or longer! I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!”, we can practice an inner response to say “I’ll be convinced of that when I have more proof of that beyond someone’s opinion today. For now, I won’t engage more deeply with that idea as it makes me feel miserable. Right now I am doing OK”. The capacity to wait for more evidence to sway our perspective is a key endurance skill. The capacity to stay with what is true right now is also a key endurance skill.
Thankfully, for most of us, we are in serious discomfort and not severe crisis. And so we can use our mental endurance skills to ground us in our current experience of health and safety. While these circumstances could change quickly and abruptly shift to crisis, increasing our mental endurance skills will only continue to serve and support us.
If you or someone you care about would like support in improving their mental endurance skills, reach out, learn more, and let us help!