5 - Dealing with Coronavirus Fear

Barbara Newell and Matthew Aldrich discuss dealing with the emotion of fear during these challenging times with the coronavirus pandemic.  They specifically touch on the fact that it is normal to have fear in a circumstance like this, however there are skillful ways to react versus unskillful and unhelpful ways of reacting.  They also explain the various mindfulness techniques which can help all of us manage the unprecedented changes around us.

Visit barbaranewell.com or thewaytowellbeing.com for more resources.  Also Barbara offers free initial consultations which can be booked here.

The Way to Well-Being is a collaboration between Barbara Newell, mindfulness + meditation teacher and a former Buddhist nun who trained under Thich Nhat Hanh, and Matthew Aldrich, mindfulness student.

This collaboration was born out of a desire to provide a more structured approach to developing long-term sustainable well-being through the cultivation of mindfulness.

As a newcomer to mindfulness, Matthew accelerated quite quickly and with relative ease in developing his meditation practice.  Upon reflection with his teacher Barbara, it became apparent that recent therapy focused on reducing emotional reactivity was extremely helpful and contributed to this benefit.  While Barbara had extensive experience and knew the immense benefit of addressing emotions in a mindfulness practice, she and Matthew noted that the traditional teachings were often missing or didn’t sufficiently explain the role of emotions.

While there are numerous books about mindfulness, the information can sometimes be conflicting, too conceptual, or just inadequate related to the actual implementation in a busy modern life.

It became apparent that a more structured approach with practical guidance and techniques could help numerous people find their way to well-being through mindfulness.

Transcript

spk_1:   0:13
welcome to the way toe wellbeing podcast, where we explore a structured approach toe wellbeing through the cultivation of mindfulness. This is Matthew Aldrich, and I'm a mindfulness student

spk_0:   0:26
and I'm Barbara, newly mindfulness teacher.

spk_1:   0:29
Today we wanted to explore the emotion of fear. Obviously, with everything that's going on with Corona virus, we all are feeling a bit of fear, anxiety and just overall sense of concern about the future. So with that, Barbara, how do we manage this situation?

spk_0:   0:56
Yeah, fear is such a universal experience of us as human beings and even as mammals and perhaps other other animal species as well. I I'm not a biologist, but, uh, it's it's certainly universal for us as human beings. And, um, I my personal experience with mindfulness is that it's an ideal set of skills and practices for for meeting this experience of fear that we all have to greater or lesser degrees, pretty much throughout our life. It's an amazing skill. And so, really, all of the things that will be talking about in this podcast are going to be various. Various practices are aspects of your perspectives. We could say from mindfulness for meeting fear skillfully and, um, not getting caught in fear. Um, and one thing that's been on my mind a lot particularly thes times that were all having is practices of what we call resourcing. Huh? So, really, you could even just take a moment. Right now are a few moments, even if there's ah, if you have a pen and paper handy, do a little journaling. But just to invite or call to mind, What are the places where the people or the activities that are most grounding and nourishing for you? Where are the places where you feel safe, where you feel relaxed and can you build in time to be in those places? If it's a if it's a a place in nature, a place in your house, it could be where you like to do. You're sitting practice. Um, ever. Maybe it's an activity like petting your cat or your dog playing with Children. Just enjoying your breathing in and out. Um, so getting intentional and conscious about what are the things that help you remember that actually, in this moment you are okay and also being aware of what are the things that tend to take you in the opposite direction, the direction of increasing fear and to be more aware and more conscious about how often you you can not have to be in those situations.

spk_1:   3:29
So is fear a bad thing for us?

spk_0:   3:32
It's Ah, it's evolutionary. We need that impulse to keep ourselves safe. It's what makes us jump out of the way of, ah, of a car that's out of control or even um mmm, even a conversation that can be harmful to us emotionally. So fear in itself is not bad. Where it makes us suffer is when we get caught up in it and we get into that kind of looping that goes on between a story about what could happen in the future. And so then we're sort of telling ourselves scary stories in our head over and over, and this actually has a negative impact on our on our body and our well being rather than it's basic purpose, which is to keep us safe.

spk_1:   4:23
And that's probably more of What we would describe is when people get elevated toe panicking.

spk_0:   4:28
Yeah, panic. It's hard for me to imagine a scenario where panic is more helpful rather than less helpful.

spk_1:   4:38
and I think what's interesting in the circumstances we have currently is it's an evolving situation. It is a dramatic shift, a dramatic change. So any sort of dramatic change in our environment or stimuli, I's gonna invoke him an emotion. And so fear is the one that's like, Oh, we have to do something. Um, And I think, you know, doing something is key. That's what your your body and your mind is asking you to do. It's more of when you're in a panic, a situation you're not thoughtfully thinking through what you need to do. You're just reacting instantaneously and very often. I mean, psychologists will tell you this. We just know it from experience is that that is very often when you're not making the most rational decisions,

spk_0:   5:28
yes, and also in this kind of situation. And I would even say most of the situations where we in our modern society are experiencing fear in most of the situations. There is no imminent immediate threat that we need to act on instantaneously. Sometimes that does happen. I mean, I just want acknowledge that some of us then this world are in places of physical danger, so Of course, when there is a car coming at you, you do whatever it takes to get out of its way. Most of us, most of the time when we're experiencing fear, it's more about something that's some distance down the road, even if it's a day or a week or longer, or fear for for our Children and what all kinds of things might happen or might not happen in their future. So it it tends to, um, trigger and be further triggered by a lot of thinking and hypothesizing about all the possible scenarios where we won't be OK.

spk_1:   6:33
Yeah, we're thinking about the negatives.

spk_0:   6:36
So so most of the time, I think mindfulness is asking us not to act right away, but actually to pause and to first of all, just acknowledge, recognize that fear is here. What's happening right now is fear, and it's normal to normal response. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us. That fear is here. We want to recognize it and even allow the fear to be here, because if we try to fight it or get rid of it or tell ourselves there's something wrong with us as we've talked about in previous episodes. What we resist will persist and probably jump out some other place after we've just tried to suppress it here. So to recognize it with compassion and just to recognize the kind of ouch of it, you know, fear is uncomfortable. Kind of a painful feeling. Raw veggie, umm so mindfulness with fear is and this is what I think. We want to get into here with the practices, first of all, acknowledging and really calling on our resources. There's this whole area of of mindfulness practice of resourcing and, as I was saying earlier, putting ourselves in places or activities or with people who give us a sense of reassurance of safety and, um, other practices that we can do one that's really good, I think, for fear. If I could just recommend one practice, it probably would be the body scan, and we have recorded one for this podcast. Early in the podcast, we we offered an eight minute body scan because the body, the sensations of the body, are always happening in the present moment. And if we can just take that pause and kind of pull riel our attention back in from all those scenarios in the thinking, the hypothesizing, the proliferation of thoughts and just direct the attention to what's happening right here, right now in the body. It's very grounding, and it can often help to dissolve the fear because we're reminded that right now the body is basically okay. And even if there are some areas of the body that are in pain or even, you know, injured or in need of treatment, it's not the entire body. And so when we when we move to different places in the body, we discover that OK, yeah, this The knee, for example, does have some pain and just acknowledging and letting it be as it is, we're not again, not tryingto fight it or get rid of it. However, when we also touch into other places where there isn't pain, where there's actually neutral sensation or even pleasant sensation mindfulness of breathing, it can be very refreshing, very pleasant or a mindfulness of the air on our skin or the air. Yeah, coming to the nostrils, um, the sun or the warmth of, or the coolness of where we are the beauty, the stability of the place that we're in the safety of it. So these are all ways that we can experience through our body that right now we're basically okay, And that is important to keep remembering, because when the mind is traveling off into all these scenarios, it's a Ziff. We're putting ourselves into all these situations where we're not okay and the body has a fear response to those to those thoughts will find that our our blood pressure may be increasing our heart. Maybe racing court is all maybe being circulating in our blood and so on.

spk_1:   10:36
So in terms of reacting to the fear, um, obviously there are activities that could be helpful, like preparing for situations where you meet might be isolated and so on. But there are probably other activities which aren't so helpful. Um, could you kind of explain maybe what your thoughts are on that?

spk_0:   11:01
So this really goes to what? What? I would give a kind of broad category of consumption or we could say diet. And just as we know that taking in certain foods versus other foods will have a direct effect on on how well we feel in our body, the same is true with what we take into our mind the things that we read and how how much of them we read, how often we read them similarly, with conversations, um, So taking the pause, acknowledging that the fear is here and pausing to ground ourselves. And remember that right now we're okay. Making some space from that sense of the contraction of fear and making some room, opening up some space and some clarity and a bit of settling in the mind and the body, these air, these air primary basic functions and reasons why people practice mindfulness and meditation. So once we have that clearer space, then we can choose very intentionally. Okay. What? Arthuis? Sources of information and advice that I want to consult to make conscious choices about, um, where I go, Um, where I don't go, Uh, you know how I arranged my work, How I care for my family, Um, choosing the sources of information and particularly as I was saying about diet, the quantity, It's enough at this point, I think at least in in the United States, it maybe just starting out in some other countries. But here in the U. S. It's been here for a number of days. It's at a certain point where they're pretty clearly established basic guidelines for, um, keeping ourselves as safe as possible from infection or spreading infection like, you know, washing our hands thoroughly and frequently. Um, social distancing and various things so we don't need to keep visiting. You know the number of cases in our state 10 times a day to

spk_1:   13:26
see if it's

spk_0:   13:26
gone up. That's probably not helpful. Or if you do it, watch what happens, like be there for yourself as you do it, like watch notice. Notice how it feels in your body. Notice if your jaw starts different or your hands start to do something or notice if you go running for the ice cream on. Just so just pay attention. This practice is really about paying attention with kindness and compassion, and every time we come back to ourselves, we take the pause. We recognize and notice what's happening inside of us as we're doing whatever we're doing deposit. We noticed how it is, and then we can choose freshly, even, always make a fresh choice. It's okay, and sometimes maybe the habit really is that strong. The fear is that strong, and it's really pushing us around pretty hard to check that. You know that Facebook feed or whatever it is. And if it is just too hard not to go ahead and do it and just keep noticing how it feels and whenever you're able, try to turn towards something that's more nourishing. So, for example, yeah, less time on on these sites, choosing the site carefully and then really putting other things in that are nourishing exactly like what we do with the real diet. We wanna have food that is nourishing, so we feel nourished and fulfilled, and we won't have that hungry grab for the bag of chips or something. So these the information world is pretty similar to that. So even among our friends, there may be friends with whom we can feel safe to to share our fears and know that they'll be received compassionately and not escalated, hopefully by the other person's reaction, or buy them, throwing a bunch of what they heard and the rumors they heard and so on. Those probably aren't gonna be the nourishing conversations right now, and so we can sort of respectfully, skillfully exercise choices about about who we spend our time with And what kinds of conversations? Certainly. What? What we do in terms of our screen time?

spk_1:   15:36
Yeah, eh, eh, So I think the bottom line is we probably shouldn't be watching CNN 24 hours a day. Ah, and but have you how about the other side of the coin on this, which is avoidance? Because I think you e I don't think you're suggesting we avoid the problem. It's like you need to be aware and confront the problem. It's just like, how far do you go? Ah, there's it's a matter of being prepared and aware, but not suggesting that Oh, everything's gonna be fine. It's

spk_0:   16:10
all gonna be perfect. I don't need to do anything different.

spk_1:   16:13
Yeah, because I've seen the opposite reaction. Um, as Barbara's you know, I was in San Francisco for a couple months. Ah, and I started seeing things change, and I started seeing community spread occur. They're relatively early towards the end of February, and I was not supposed to return here to Michigan until April. Uh, and I looked at the information I personally did not want to be isolated in my relatively small apartment. I want to be surrounded by my friends and family and in my house. And so I made the decision to come back to Michigan earlier, and I'm very glad I did, because as Lily, a week after I left, San Francisco started going into a lock down. My client actually instituted work from home policy, so it worked out quite well. I didn't panic. I didn't. I just saw the reality of what was occurring. And I had personal choices to make on And, um, talk to people. And it was very interesting in the beginning because most people I would say we're in a little bit of an avoidance face. Um, they I think in a lot of ways, couldn't imagine it. Three United States being disrupted to the same extent as China Waas Um, my view after seeing I mean, I didn't think China would have locked down the city of 20 million people if it wasn't a big deal s o. I saw I think the risk a little bit more clearly. Ah, and reacted in a very calm way. But some of the initial reactions were Oh, it's gonna be fine. You're overreacting. You're um, you're panicking. And I was like, it was very interesting because I remember even calling you in getting your advice on it. And you were very clear. It was like you you need to come back. And so and you will have people who, um, that you talk to that are on the other spectrum, that they're not fearful. Ah, and you have to be. I think at least in my situation, you have to have confidence and trust in yourself. I think one of the reasons when I came back Michigan everyone was really calm and no problem. And that was about a week ago, and literally within a week. It's like panic, which I thought was interesting because I think what people were reacting to. We're other people. They saw people going out and buying toilet paper, so they felt like they had to go buy toilet paper. Yeah, has

spk_0:   18:56
been discussed in in the news as well. Like this, you know, this escalating fear of watching other people do something and then you like, you have to do it.

spk_1:   19:04
It's a herd mentality,

spk_0:   19:06
Really. And again normal. Very

spk_1:   19:07
normal. But I think what I think you have to keep in mind is you have to trust yourself. Your instincts, and part of that is being mindful of and aware of exactly how you feel based on the circumstances, not based on what you see other people doing, uh,

spk_0:   19:29
or choosing which people,

spk_1:   19:32
right? Yes.

spk_0:   19:32
You, um you talk with and listen to as you did. I mean, you you heard a certain point of view from your office early on when they were not seeing any need for you to change your your your work pattern. And then you called me as someone who you felt waas um, pretty balanced and grounded and also seeing things pretty clearly, you know, taking in the information so night neither in denial nor panic. So that's, I think, the kinds of friends and family members that we want to gravitate toward in these sorts of times.

spk_1:   20:13
Yeah. I mean, if you if you cultivate mindfulness and you really are attuned to yourself, Um, at what I've learned through this practice is to trust my instincts. Ah, and my instinct from early on was a groom or and more concerned. And I remember waking up one morning and I have two dogs that I had taken with me to San Francisco. And what occurred was well, what happened If I would get quarantined or if I got ill, I didn't have a support network there. I was there for work. I was living in an apartment, and that was what really galvanized me to think about. Okay, we really need to be set up in position where, um, I could have a friend come over and take care of them or on so on. So those are the types of things I think you really need to consider. It's a personal situation.

spk_0:   21:11
Yeah, And you were doing it from this place is you're saying of of balance, of grounding, of someone who has a practice of regularly coming back to the present moment of, um not necessarily believing every thought that flips through your head or that comes across your phone. You know that you you've already cultivated this this coming back to the moment and making space for things and then looking at them in this, um it's clear and yeah, balanced way

spk_1:   21:46
well, and I think what I also said, I should note I drove out to California So I had to drive back, obviously. Ah, And so literally on the night I left the state of California, I had a fever on, and I had some major gastrointestinal issues. Ah, and obviously, I mean, I was knocked out for at least 12 hours in a hotel. Um, and the first thing that came to mind was, Oh, gosh, is this Corona virus? Some. And I didn't panic. I was obviously concerned for my health. I did what was necessary. Um, and at first, once it cleared up, I was like, Okay, well, it's just probably a stomach flu. Nothing to be concerned about. But upon further, I did do some further investigation because I was supposed to stop and see my father in Oklahoma. And based on research, there were 4% of cases in China where which started out as G. I problems

spk_0:   22:51
just throw intestinal. Yeah,

spk_1:   22:53
And so based on that, I consulted, um, a nurse friend of mine and got his device and then subsequently decided not to stop and see my father out of an abundance of caution. Obviously, because of lack of testing, I couldn't get testing. My symptoms cleared. Um, but I took precautions to protect people. Um, didn't panic. Um, it was just took action.

spk_0:   23:24
And you also connected with with your friends with the friends. Exactly. You people know what was happening and how you're responding. So you weren't You weren't doing any of this in total isolation, even if you weren't physically seeing them. Because you were traveling across the country, but you were reaching out and connecting with what you knew you could rely on as people who really can be present with you and really in the moment with what you're going through and just yeah, your friend

spk_1:   23:54
And I think the key thing is I mean, all of us are gonna have to be abundantly cautious throughout this time to ensure even if we have a cold or, um, some symptoms of sickness ideally, your self quarantining limiting yourself to other people because the testing is just not gonna be there for a bit. Um, and that's the thing I've emphasized to people. It's like we can write it off as a cold. Even doctors. My brother had an instance where, um, he was exposed to someone who had flu like symptoms, but they never got flu test. So I was like, You don't know if it was flu or not Or Corona. So you really need self quarantine? Um, and that's I think, the it's not panicking. It's being prudent on being prepared. I think it's key.

spk_0:   24:47
Yeah, And then in the meantime, when When none of those things that are immediately happening for you, you're not having symptoms that you're not in contact with someone like that, as far as you know, And nonetheless, if the thoughts are still coming, um, a few other things that we can do to ground and to resource ourselves are, of course, the practice of mindful breathing if breathing is a good anchor for you. When we talked in an earlier podcast about finding your anchor to help you come back to the present moment out of thoughts, whether it's thoughts of overreaction or as you're also touching on under reaction or denial and trying to kind of push away what's actually happening. Um, for many of us breathing, mindful, breathing is very helpful and grounding and centering, and in particular one that can be helpful if we're feeling quite stressed or frightened as a technique that's called coherence breathing. And that's simply a method where we take a kind of matching length of time for the in breath and the out breath so it might be of four seconds or a five second in breath in a four or five seconds out breath. We can even just kind of count to ourselves, and it doesn't have. It's not so important. You know, the number of seconds and whether it corresponds to your watch, but just roughly equalizing the in breath on the out breath as a way of finding a rhythm that feels soothing that feels reassuring and then, more broadly out. Also look at other ways that particularly if we now, where if our work is disrupted or our rhythm is otherwise disrupted. UH, creating new rhythms, at least for this period of time You know, these couple weeks or months, however long it's likely to be for you. Um, it's until now you've been, you know, relying on the day, the time of day when you need it to arrive at the office or the time of day when you need it to drop off your kid at work. And now those things are different you're perhaps not doing. You're not maybe going to your office. Or maybe you're not taking your child to school, and of a sudden there's no structure to your day. Maybe you have a meeting on Zoom at one PM or something, and you just have to get this other work done. So if you can, what to whatever extent you can create a regular rhythm and routine a new one for this period of time, like a set waking time. That's at breakfast time, a set time When, um, when you sit down at your death to do your work, Um, it's important to keep doing something physically like If you're not going to the gym anymore, try to create a routine in your home or in your backyard or whatever it is walking around the block, something to keep, keep the body moving and keep, you know, frankly, the stress hormones like circulating and let them get metabolized. And it's just it's beneficial that these air Dan Siegel is, ah, psychiatrist and an expert on both mindfulness and neurobiology. And he happened would say that when when he would see often, I think he worked with adolescence and he would the first prescription he would write for them. This exercise, and then we'll go from there. Yeah. Um, so that's one thing as I mentioned the food that we consume both bodily food and the food that we take in through through the media and through our friends. Um, yeah, just anything that helps us come back and relax just to reset.

spk_1:   28:26
And we were habitual creatures on. This is a huge disruption and our typical habits Eso it's understandable. It's gonna be very uncomfortable. And I think the key to remember though we will normalize it will take a little time. It's like any change that you have in life. Imagine if you were moving Ah, your house. I mean, it's obviously very stressful event, but when she gets settled, you moved into the new house. You start to become less stress. These are more settled and comfortable on. Do you develop new habits and everything becomes normalized. It's it's just gonna take a little time, and you have to give yourself that time.

spk_0:   29:10
Yeah, to take the time as sadistic kind of Summarize the things we've been talking about. Pause. Acknowledge whatever you're feeling, Try your best not to. Not to judge yourself or make yourself wrong for what you're feeling or for what you're thinking. Do some do some practice of breathing, of touching into the body and then make your choices create new routines that can support you. New ways of of having some regularity in your day. And, yeah, just to really take good care and to remember a swell. Perhaps it's helpful just to remember other times in the past one. You went through something, and at the time initially it might have just felt really scary and you weren't sure who was gonna turn out, and you did come through it. You did come through it, and you may perhaps very likely have come out of it stronger and that this is most likely going to be the same with us. And it's It's a matter of just taking care of ourselves and each other as we move through a time of change.

spk_1:   30:21
Okay. Thank you, Barbara. I think that's enough time for today. We very much appreciate you listening, and we hope you found this very helpful. For more information, feel free to visit our website at the weigh 12 being dot com And for more information on Barbara and how she can help you, visit barbara Newell dot com. Thank you very much and have a wonderful day during these challenging times. We're trying to do our part to help. As a teacher, Barbara provides one on one personal coaching to help assess and advance ones mindfulness and meditation practices. She is now offering initial consultations for free. You can go to her Web site, barbara nool dot com, to immediately book a time. Sessions will either be conducted, be a telephone or video conference. We're also exploring virtual classes of meditation sessions. Visit the weight well being dot com or barbara Newell dot com to sign up for our newsletter to stay informed of these developments. Lastly, if you have any ideas of other ways, we can help please contact us at the email address in PO at the way too well being dot com Thank you again for listening. We wish you only the best as we navigate this unique challenge