A Counselor’s Guide to COVID-19

Welp, here we are, three months into the roaring twenties facing a global pandemic. Just as we all might have expected. Schools are shutting down, businesses scrambling, hands cleaner than ever, and I’ve suddenly discovered an impeccable ability to imagine germs everywhere. Literally everywhere.

Our world as we have known it is different. It might not stay that way, but for now, it’s different. Where we go, who we see, and what we do has all changed. The COVID-19 coutbreak has created an unseen boundary on the way we experience our world. 

A small weight of responsibility for protecting the community at large has fallen on each of our shoulders. We didn’t want it or ask for it, but it’s become a part of our social contract nonetheless. In an effort to protect ourselves and our more susceptible community members, we have taken up advice to pursue social distancing. 

As we’re all learning, social distancing is the response used to flatten the infected persons rate of viruses. Particularly useful for viruses with no known treatment. However, social distancing is quite terrible advice for our mental health. Every single day I sit in therapy sessions and implore clients to stay “tethered to the world”. I want my clients to feel that they are moving with the bigger world around them because when we become untethered, we experience more distress.

And now, the entire world is collectively disconnecting. And make no mistake, I wholeheartedly believe you should be as well.  

A challenging question I’ve had to consider the past few days is, how to find peace, normalcy, or joy in this unprecedented situation. My first thought on hearing this question is of course to write a strongly worded letter to my graduate school for not covering pandemic response counseling interventions sufficiently (more on this later). My second thought was to acknowledge that my first thought was quite unhelpful for the current situation and that part of my role in this environment is to offer some amount of helpful counsel. The letter would have to wait. 

Initially, I paused at this question. I really didn’t know how to answer. While I’ve certainly made myself socially distant in the past, this is my first experience with being federally encouraged to become distant. I don’t immediately have a tool in my toolbox for COVID-19 response.  

The real principle of the question though is, “how can I stay emotionally okay when it seems like I can no longer do the things that make me feel okay?” And that is a principle we’re confronted with often.

 The truth, I think, is that we generally misattribute what makes us feel good. I might tend to think I am generally happy because I was able to work at my office downtown, or because I could steal some time for the gym, or because I have a good book to read. But I want to offer a challenge to this thought. What if it’s not the things I was able to have to do, but rather the personal value I get to experience when I engage those things?

 I feel good about these because I get to feel connected to a team and my clients, or I get to experience motivation, pride, and confidence, or because I indulge in curiosity and growth.

It’s not the details of my life that bring happiness, but rather the principles I get to live out through the details. 

This is easy to imagine. Take a moment to picture yourself in an entirely different context. You’re in a new city with a new job and new relationships. You have new hobbies, a new house, and new worries. Imagine also that you have no awareness of your current life. Presumably, you could still experience happiness. The details are different, but your values are steady. And by living out our values, we create the details necessary to consistently and predictably feel goodness.

We feel good in our current relationships, adventures, hobbies, and general daily patterns, because we have slowly crafted ways to consistently and predictably be in touch with our values. Our routines tether us to meaning, connection, and purpose in our worlds. 

You have a set of core values you live by. We may not be able to quickly name them (though I’d argue we should), but they’re there. They are reflected when we parent our children, perform our jobs, communicate with people, build relationships, take a stand for something, and make a purchase. LIke a company mission statement they help guide our behavior and manage the expectation of other people’s behavior. 

When we live in ways that closely reflect our values, we tend to feel good. When we live in ways that are disconnected from our values, we tend to feel worse.

Social distancing will move us away from the patterns we have developed to consistently live out our values. Now it’s up to each one of us to define a new normal for putting our values into action. What a great opportunity for each of us to expand the reach of our personal values! 

Take some time to think about your values. What values do you admire in others? Think about moments you feel good and reflect on what value is being met in that moment. How do you hope others describe you? What core set of principles do you hope to reflect in your life? When you’re going about a normal routine, what values do you pull from those experiences? Make note of these.

Your principles become a rough framework for your life. They set the tone for relationships, physical health, occupation, spiritual practices, and more. They are specific enough to have clear meaning but vague enough to be applied to almost any context. At any given moment we have the opportunity to pursue our values. That’s such an important statement I want to repeat it. At any given moment, we have the opportunity to pursue our values. That is the task I gave my clients and it’s the task I’m personally taking up now.

While we all have many many values, it’s sometimes helpful to focus on a few at a time. Here’s how I’ll be pursuing values while socially distancing.

1. Pursue hidden moments of Joy: I will take joy in the pride of my daughter completing her Paw Patrol puzzle. I will try to uncover joy hidden behind immediate frustration or annoyance. I’ll take joy in my current health. I’ll pursue joy in the details I miss taking things for granted each day. I will find joy in being able to create digital connections as my job transitions to online counseling.

1. Make someone feel valuable: I will seek to intentionally help someone feel heard, important, and generally valuable. 

1. Goodness: In the decisions I make, actions I take, and thoughts I give my energy to, I want to generally put good into the world.

PS. In my first year of graduate school, I was assigned the book A Man’s Search for Meaning written by Viktor Frankl about his experiences in Naze concentration camps. In it he writes this well-know quote,

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” 

My hats off to the wonderful professors at Milligan College and for their role in the work I do today. I’ll guess I’ll save my letter.

Be well and stay safe,
Ben