It was probably just me (it wasn’t), but in the early days of the pandemic, it seemed like the world was going to end (it didn’t). But at the time, no one could know the future. When there was so much suffering and uncertainty being the focus of our daily lives, it was difficult to find hope. But hope always exists. And when hope exists, we can face forward and move ahead towards whatever destination we choose. We know we rarely end up in the destination we expect, but if we do nothing we will remain in that place of suffering and uncertainty.
So, how do we find this hope?. Simple, when you are calm, centered and at peace, the hope that was there all along can rise above the noise to be discovered by your conscious mind . But sometimes all of the suffering and uncertainty can block out all other inputs. It can feel like being lost in a dense, cold fog.
One thing you need to remember is that fog is not infinite. When you are surrounded by a fog, it can seem like it goes on forever in every direction. But, we all know, deep down, that this isn’t the case. Fog is just a ground level cloud. And clouds have shape and form and this means that, eventually, anyone can find the edge of the cloud and exit to clarity, if you just keep moving.
But once you’ve made the choice to move forward, you still need to pick which way to go. One way out is to blindly and randomly roam searching your way out of the formlessness. Since, as we said, we know that there is clarity somewhere outside of cloud, then there are an infinite number of directions you can go and make it out of the fog. Some are longer routes than others. You might be going in the right direction to exit the fog, or you might be going backwards deeper into the fog. Or you might be going in circles.
I think, you stand a better chance of finding the edge of the fog and returning to a place of clarity and warmth if you have some help from outside to provide some guidance, such as a light piercing through mist or a deep, resonant horn blasting it’s call persistently. You need something other than the fog to focus on so that you give yourself something to connect with. The goal is not the horn, but to realize that the horn is real and in a real place. It is that real place that is the goal. The outside help is a means to reach your goal.
So, when the fog is overwhelming sometimes it is helpful to create our own virtual lighthouses to help us find the clarity to look beyond the fog that surrounds ourselves. We need a distraction from the uncertainty to give ourselves a chance to find our direction.
While there are many ways to return from the wilderness, I did get two practical bits of advice that I got in those early days of the pandemic helped me out (1) on those days when it was tough to get going and (2) on those long nights when it was tough to get to sleep. Both bits of advice involved finding some healthy distractions to break old habits.
For those glum days, I was given the advice to JUST GET OUTSIDE. Get outside. Breathe Fresh Air. Soak in some Sun. For me, I found that simple change of scenery forced me to break from earlier thought cycles. It did not, by itself, give me new ideas or thoughts of hope, but it did provide a separation from the physical environment indoors while cooped up.
The visuals outside were different and dynamic. Physical sensations were different, too. Fresh air filled my lungs and signs of life were everywhere. I found that this jostling of sensations was enough to give my mind a chance to refocus and find direction. When I was given the advice, it didn’t seem like it would make much of a difference, but it did. Perhaps it was in my mind. I had gone in and out for errands and necessary travel, but when I did, I wasn’t consciously thinking of being outside as somewhere truly different. But once I thought about it and started to pay attention to the vast difference being outside was compared to being confined indoors, just going outside was enough to break me out of one mindset and the space to find a new one. And with a clear and open mind, the conscious self can begin again to make good choices and remember old good habits and develop new good habits.
That helped during the day (especially on clear, sunny days), but what about at night, when lying awake in bed? A trip out in the moonlight and the cold air isn’t a great way for most people to get physically and mentally prepared to slow down to refresh the body and the soul with a good, comfortable night of sleep. There are lots of things we can do to assist our body’s natural circadian rhythms to guide us to our restorative nightly respite. Turning down lights and lowering sound volume is obvious. Under most circumstances, turning off screens is at the top of the list of things to do to help get to sleep. Doom Scrolling on your smartphone from one terrible story, post, image or video after the next will just grow the anxiety that is keeping you awake. The captive visual and audio stimulation tricks the mind into and distracts from the sensations of physical exhaustion that should be telling you to go to sleep. Some like to take a bath or shower which has it’s own physical and audible components. Some like to read a book or create something artistic like a sketch or painting.
For me, the advice I got that was most effective was to PLAY VIDEO GAMES. Now, this seems like it goes against the earlier advice about turning off screens at bedtime. Well, in this case, the content makes a big difference. And that difference is about passive versus active focus. For me, certain repetitive, but still highly variable puzzle games were able to give active focus to my mind when my thoughts were still swirling and could not be quieted on their own. Well known physical puzzles like crosswords and sudoku are a great way to give a low-stakes focus that helps drown out distributive thoughts that can wait until morning. And most smartphones have a nearly endless variety of puzzles and games available for a quick download.
Puzzles can come in all sorts. There are games that focus the mind on visual patterns, often with bright colors and varied shapes Others delve into strategy or verbal or mathematical tasks. All of these take concentration, persistence and luck. Solving for the space for the next TETRIS block or helping Ms. Pac Man’s endless quest is one way to break from one reality…for just long enough to find yourself. Many games have features you can pay for to speed up your progress or to give yourself more time to play in a session. But that defeats the point here. We’re not interested in playing games all night…just long enough to jostle us out of whatever ordeal we are imagining and get us the space to refocus on ourselves and our own well being. This gives the mind and body time to heal on its own.
Whether you are expanding your horizons with a walk down the street or through the park, or if you are connecting colorful trinkets or idly collecting coins in new and puzzling ways or finding some other virtual lighthouse that works for you, taking a step out of yourself to clear and focus without the anxiety of the day weighing you down can give you a focus that can allow you to pass unencumbered by the fog and mist until you find yourself in clear skies with the world open for exploration.
