Feeling fearful of joining life again?

By anybody’s standards it has been a crazy year.  It’s been a year of being closed away in our homes and seeing very little of people and the world. For some people this has brought great pain. For others, this has brought great relief.  Others have had mixed feelings about the whole thing, but now as the world is opening up are maybe finding they don’t feel as comfortable stepping out as they did before.

Some of this might be around the fear of COVID, but there is also something else going on for many.   This goes something more along the lines of the following:

-          Pre-covid some social situations would cause a bit of light anxiety. This might be moments like chatting to colleagues in the kitchen as you make tea, being in a lift with someone senior, going to the pub with colleagues after work. But, you did it and you got through.

-          Lockdown comes along and all of a sudden you don’t have to deal with any of that. Phew you say. You relax into life a little knowing you don’t have to deal with any of those challenges.

-          But now, as life opens up and offices are starting to get back up and running, suddenly there is this big fear.

What is going on?!  As soon as you avoid something that you feel a little fearful of, the fear of it starts to increase. This is because each time you avoid something that feels a little scary (Ie saying ‘I won’t come out tonight as I have too much work to do’) you feel short term relief, but long term that doesn’t serve you at all, as it reinforces a belief that you can’t cope with this situation. And that just increases the anxiety around it for next time it comes along.

Lockdown has been like one big avoidance of things that brought fear. And where, in the past you were pushing through and getting on with things and realising that while you felt a little anxious, you could cope with them, after a year of avoidance that fear has grown pretty big.

Ultimately the only way through this is to take steps (make them small if you need to but try to increase them day by day) to get back out there again.

If you need some help through this transition, please contact me. I offer a FREE 15 minute consultation.