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Why You Shouldn’t Feel Guilty If You Do Nothing During Quarantine
The idea of making the most of confinement time prevails, a pressure that ends up overwhelming many
Facing the passing hours is a challenge that sometimes we do not master. Accustomed to a hectic life, to not almost stopping at home, to filling our weekends with endless activities and meetings, suddenly stop our social life and locking ourselves at home can be a torment.
The quarantine derived from the coronavirus crisis, which keeps most of the Spanish citizens confined to their homes, has changed the paradigm of our life: what used to represent normalcy – going to the gym, having a beer on a terrace, walking hand in hand through the city – now it is impossible. Facing this new reality is the reason that has led people, throught social media, do your best to plan activities and stay busy; It is time to do everything that we always make excuses not to do: learn to play the guitar, read all the books that are piled up on the bookshelf and kill ourselves to exercise.
But, in this frenzied quasi-imposition of activity, many have encountered a problem: they don’t feel like doing anything. No, they do not want to make three video calls a day or start cooking cakes and cakes as if it were the end of the world. That is why, now that it is almost the norm to show through social networks how much we take advantage of these days of quarantine, an inevitable feeling may appear in the chosen inactivity: guilt.
Uncomfortable “guilt”
«Normally, people show their way of life made up with many filters of happiness. With the quarantine, a reality with which we have all lived for a long time has simply worsened, ”explains Cristina Ramos, psychopedagogue and art therapist at the Centta Institute. This is why many people tend to feel bad under the perception that they are wasting “valuable time”. «There is a true social imperative that establishes a demand for the correct way to live this moment, related to« having to », which produces great anxiety when not being able to meet these expectations, because our feelings are very changing, alternating and disconcerting sometimes “, says Sandra Isella, director of the Cepsim Psychological Center.
The professional exemplifies: if during the beginning of the quarantine period, many still in shock, dozens of objectives were proposed “without being able to measure what would come”, now that “we are increasingly unmotivated” appears a guilty feeling for not fulfilling the initial purposes.
Even so, Cristina Ramos explains that “guilt is a learned response that has to do with our belief system,” so it is possible that people who feel guilty for not taking advantage of the time in quarantine “already felt that way before for different reasons.
Do nothing like survival
But, once we relativize that feeling of guilt, we reach a point where our reaction to confinement is the way we understand our own survival. For this reason, Sandra Isella explains that our reaction can be to “do nothing”, as well as “get bored, impatient with rats, being tired or angry ». «We have a task that requires so much adaptive effort that the various emotions we experience help us to better accommodate ourselves. That is why it is important to accommodate the emotions we feel, not to reject them, but to understand them and give them a space to process them », says the professional. And, although our heads make us feel guilty for not getting on the crowded train of hyperactivity, within inactivity we can also find benefits.
Doing nothing is impossible. When we sit down to get some sun, if we lie down on the sofa, if we sleep an hour more, we are doing something: we are taking care», Explains the psychologist Cristina Ramos. Likewise, the director of the Cepsim Psychological Center points out that, in these very particular circumstances, it is important “to allow ourselves not to feel like doing anything”, since our mood can be affected.
Benefits of stillness
That is why the psychologist recommends that, rather than thinking about getting benefits, it is important to accept the moment and focus on «letting ourselves be accompanied, be able to connect with others, consoling each other, supporting each other so that when one of them fails or despairs there is another who will move on ».
The professionals talk about another opportunity that this convulsive situation offers us: that of get to know ourselves better. The psychologist Ramos explains that the first thing we are going to learn from ourselves is our coping style when faced with a difficult situation. “There are people who occupy their time with many activities because they are not capable of accepting reality and have serious difficulties in managing loneliness,” says the psychologist, adding that “no one should judge our behavior because what apparently may be ideal, in occasions only serves for disguise a discomfort that it would be much more productive to face ».
By way of conclusion Sandra Isella rescues a powerful idea: «It is a great opportunity for learning, for humility cures, for recognize our limitations, our fragility, our vulnerability and at the same time, our resources and our possibilities, until now dormant or unknown.