Quote from Peter Gabriel’s ‘Your Eyes’

I feel like this is the sentiment I have been hearing from folks lately.

When we are out of our normal routine and cooped up at home, it is very easy to lose touch with your sense of time. Have you noticed that what happened just a week ago seems like a lifetime? This is a dissociative process, our sense of time is dissociated, or disconnected, from our current situation and life.

This is why keeping some sort of routine is important, it doesn’t have to be super detailed or overly ambitious. It does not have to replicate your ‘normal’ routine but routines help us and our unconscious brain make sense and order of our days.

Get up at a regular time, get dressed as if you might leave the house and do something where you see others. Again, this does not mean you have to put on business clothes or a full set of make-up. It does mean changing out of your pajamas, brushing your hair and brushing your teeth.

Try to remember that we are practicing physical distancing to protect our social networks from the virus. We can still have meaningful, loving connection with others even if we cannot touch them. I recognize that it is not the same, but calling it social distancing seems to be having a negative psychological impact.

I know that it is hard right now, but you can get through this. We can get through this together.

If you are a frontline worker or essential employee and struggling with your mental health right now there is a wonderful new resource to access low fee or no fee telehealth services. They have a website and it is easy to go on and find someone to meet your needs. Check out their website at www.CoronaVirusOnlineTherapy.com