Going Anti-Viral by Practicing Our Emotional Vocabulary

Like many of us I’m sure… I just finished a mid-morning Zoom drop-in meeting for congregational folks where everyone is invited to pour a cuppa and spend an hour in the company of others. I am always a little bit surprised by how much lighter I feel after I end the meeting—seeing each other, hearing each other, being in touch with each other. It’s really good. I am especially grateful that we have many and varying ways to connect with each other through technology and that is actually helping us defeat COVID19 by helping us be together while apart.

COVID has figured out how to use nature’s design against us. The very things that humans need to thrive (contact and closeness) are the very things that COVID uses to spread and cause harm. To keep the virus “homeless”, we have to stay at home… alone. This is counter-intuitive for humans. Our worst fear is being separated or facing separation. That’s why in the middle of the 2013 floods everyone wasn’t immediately concerned about their property. They were worried about finding each other. Our pursuit for contact and closeness in order to overcome separation puts higher level brain functioning (essentially our pre-frontal cortex) on hold so that it can focus on reducing separation and restoring proximity. COVID19 is really playing us right now, because we are having to be separate from each other (no less than two meters, about one and half hockey sticks) while outside, and separate from each by staying home. This “distancing” is not how humans are designed by nature to live. We are meant to be together, not separated. Our natural emotional response to being separated from each other is to restore contact and closeness. Sometimes, especially when we are directly facing separation (whether anticipated, felt, or existential), our pursuit for contact and closeness with one another becomes intensified. This is a prime emotional response.

To help us settle into the disorientation that is ours to live right now, we need to find some words to help us understand what’s happening to us emotionally. There are three separation-based prime emotions that we may be experiencing at any given time: Intensified Pursuit, Alarm, and Frustration. COVID19 is activating all three. I have already introduced separation and its offspring “pursuit”. It helps explain why (at least for me) a Zoom meeting with friends leaves me feeling a little lighter. Why? Because it reduces the separation and mixes in contact and closeness. In her recent speech, Queen Elizabeth concluded with the words, “We will meet again”. Her words are comforting because they turn our face in the direction of our next connection as opposed to focusing on all that divides us. Facing separation is very difficult for humans. So, we look for ways to reduce separation by turning ourselves into the direction of our next connection. “I’ll see you at next week’s Zoom drop-in”. To our children, “I can’t wait to see you in the morning…” Or, “I can’t wait to talk to you tomorrow… I love you”. We put our energy there, rather than into that which divides. We will meet again.

Alarm is a fear-based emotion. Alarm serves to move us to be cautious—to find refuge and safety. COVID19 is very alarming because it is scary. While alarm is nature’s way to help us take cover in the face of danger, too much alarm can cause us to feel overwhelmed, and lead to many forms of anxiety. As separation is to pursuit, alarm is to anxiety. To help reduce anxiety we need to find ways to bring down our level of alarm. We can do that for example, by limiting the amount of news we watch, by reducing the amount of time scrolling through our Facebook news feed (oh please, please limit that), and by turning off the clock radio in the morning. Instead, I notice that my son wakes up to wind chimes on his phone. Susan and I have stopped watching CBC’s The National every night and have opted to read the news. Instead, we practice daily morning and evening prayer which includes lighting a candle and making room for our breath while we hold our community in prayer. We can still be aware of what’s going on around us and live accordingly, while at the same time reduce being overly stimulated by too much alarm.

Frustration is the emotion we experience when “something is not working”. Again, this is a natural response in all mammals. We get frustrated in the face of those things that just aren’t working or that we can’t fix. COVID19 is a huge source of frustration for us. Today one of my people told me about a man who pushed past her at the grocery store and blew off physical distancing because, no virus was going to keep him from doing what he needs to do (no matter the cost, apparently). He was frustrated and angry because COVID was clearly preventing things from working for him. As alarm is to anxiety, so frustration is to anger. When faced with the things that are not working or the things we cannot fix or change… when we are in the presence of futility, there is nothing left for us to do but have our tears. There are clearly things about COVID that are hugely frustrating and not all that fixable. We need our tears. The tears of futility are nature’s way of delivering us to our resilience and adaptation. Otherwise, if we skip our tears of futility, we will go straight to anger and if we can’t temper that, anger will turn foul and become aggressive—hence the guy at the grocery store. Of course, our frustration will ease if we can solve the problem. On the one hand, physical distancing is something we can do to solve the pandemic crisis. We can all do it. On the other hand, when we’re facing the futilities of those things we cannot fix or change, or that can’t happen fast enough, then we need to have our tears.

One way through these extraordinary times is to practice our emotional vocabulary. What is the prime emotion I am experiencing right now? Am I feeling an unrelenting aloneness and lack of togetherness? Then I am facing separation and feeling pursuit—needing to be loved and in close proximity. Am I feeling anxious, afraid, forgetful and can’t concentrate? Yup, I am alarmed. Am I irritable, impatient, angry? Right… I’m frustrated.

As we approach Easter and all its rituals of worship, family meals, and celebrations now unavailable to us due to COVID, we will no doubt be experiencing the emotions of intensified pursuit, alarm and frustration as traditional festive family gatherings are thwarted and our normal contact and closeness with each other is nixed. In the face of separation from each other, our primary job is to reduce the separation by using our innovation and creativity to foster togetherness while apart. We will also need to embrace our futilities and grieve the losses associated with living in these extraordinary times.

And what better time to do that than at Easter, where in the face of violence, crucifixion and death, God transforms such unimaginable separation into resurrection. Nothing, not even death on a cross or a pernicious virus, can separate us from God’s love. That is the mystery of our faith. So, we take up a relationship with our emotions which are very real and will deliver us to the other side of Alarm, Frustration and Pursuit into the territory of deep joy and resilience. I believe this to be a deep mystery at Easter time. God is already ahead of us, welcoming our fears and tears while offering deep love and assurance through Divine contact and closeness.

As we meet via whatever safe means over Easter, may we proclaim the mysteries of our faith that Christ is Risen—that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love in the Risen Christ.