Contents
Why not feel guilty about what you feel during quarantine
Psychology
Sadness, nostalgia, heartbreak or even happiness: the torrent of emotions we feel these days is infinite
We feel so many things throughout a day that many times we are not able to recognize all emotions that we have experienced. Even those who avoid surrendering to what they feel end up being resigned to it: we cannot run away from emotions, no matter how many times we try. “Surrender to the turmoil of the world,” said Joan Didion; To live in peace with our emotions, the best thing is to identify them, understand them and accept them, surrender to them.
If it is usually difficult for us to manage what we feel, at a time of exception such as the current one in which, due to the Covid-19 crisis, what we knew as normality is no longer normal, the effort we must make to “Coexist” with our feelings is older. The list of everything that moves us inside these days is endless: sadness, anger, nostalgia, rejection, anger or even joy. There is nothing better than understanding the emotions we experience one by one in order to master them.
Sadness and loneliness soon surfaced. It is easy to feel like this, especially if during these days we are alone. “What we have to think is that although right now we do not have our physical freedom, we do have social freedom,” explains psychologist Pilar Gil Díaz, director of the Terapiayemoción psychology office. The professional recommends keep in touch with the people we love as the best way to cope with these feelings: “When you are lonely or sad, write or contact someone and think that at this moment you are not alone, because there are many people who are in the same situation as you.”
Dealing with homesickness
Within this feeling of sadness we can also find nostalgia, common these days when we are not close to our family, friends or even partners. And the way to alleviate the uneasiness is to maintain contact with these people, even if it must be telematically. “We should not keep what we do not have”, says the psychologist, who urges us to “discover new ways of talking with our loved ones.” “We are in a moment to discover how important people are in our life,” he says.
But, not only can we feel nostalgic for our loved ones, longing for the past can also appear during these days. “It is normal that you miss memories of the past,” explains the professional. For this reason, he recommends us not to keep what we have lost, but to think about adapting to the new situation, to think about how we can replicate what we had before in this new scenario.
Survive at a distance from your partner
Many people have been forced to spend quarantine away from their partners. The psychologist Pilar Gil Díaz explains that it is normal that “we miss physical contact”, but we should not underestimate the ways that society currently offers us to be in contact: emails, messages, calls and video calls …
«This will pass, we will return to normality, so now in« the present »enjoy your partner, laugh with her, you can watch a series together or comment on it after watching it, on the weekend you can have something by video call; the distance does not have to be an impediment “, explains the professional, who assures that we can discover” a multitude of facets of our partner that perhaps we did not know».
On the contrary, we may find ourselves in the middle of a breakup. If a love setback is always painful and complicated, getting through it during quarantine can magnify how we feel. The advice of the psychologist is that we ask ourselves a question: “Were you happy?” “Most likely, if you’re honest with yourself, the answer is ‘no,'” he says. Even so, the professional recognizes that, feelings of loneliness and sadness they will inevitably appear, and he explains that it is time to “focus on ourselves.”
«Although you may believe or sometimes think that you will not find anyone else like that, we all know that this is not true: people do not have a single person for us, that are only clichés of some movies and books », remembers Pilar Gil Díaz.
Not feel guilty
Finally, the psychologist proposes a different case: What happens if, during these days, nor could we avoid feeling good with the situation? “Our life before confinement was full of stress and all of a sudden all of that disappears,” explains the professional. As a result, many people have seen their daily stress reduced and have felt great relief.
A lot of people have more time to be with their children, with their partners or even with themselves. “This is a time that many longed for, but we have to know how to take advantage of it,” he says.
It is important not feel guilty for being able to bring out the positive side of the situation. “Mindfulness talks about ‘allowing yourself’; it’s okay to feel positive emotions at this time: that’s part of resilience, ”says Pilar Gil. “If at this moment you are feeling these emotions, do not blame yourself for it, you are not doing anything wrong or harmful to others, on the contrary, you are taking care of yourself and protecting yourself, this is essential to manage the emotions of anxiety, sadness and depression” , concludes.