Fostering Togetherness in a Time That Feels Lonely.

Hey Christianson Chiro gang! I don’t know about you but doesn’t feel like this pandemic has been going on for a long time now?! If you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, lonely, angry, or sad about where we seem to be stuck right now, this blog post is for you!

Overall, during this pandemic, I think the strongest feeling I’ve been experiencing is loneliness. I found out during the lockdown in March of 2020 that I’m an extrovert, which was a surprise to me because I started out as an introvert. But I QUICKLY realized during the pandemic, that now, without a doubt, I am indeed an extrovert, and quite a strong one at that. So when I heard that Omicron is coming out strong and bringing us back to a similar situation as during the original lockdown, I felt sad. I miss the parties, hang outs with friends, traveling adventures, and just going out on the town, mask less and worriless! Any one else have similar sentiments?

Something that I’ve observed lately, and for quite a while, is how divergent our society seems to be currently. It seems that there are these big dividers up, and that there are very distinct sides. It seems to be that one side is considered RIGHT and one is considered WRONG, and depending which side you are on, of course influences which opinion you think is right and which one you think is wrong. To get a clearer picture of what I’m saying, I’m talking about topics liked Vaxxed or Un-Vaxxed, Democrat or Republican, and even how different people are choosing how to live their lives during this pandemic. People seem to be very confident about which side they are on, and are making their opinions loud and clear both in person and maybe especially on social media.

It feels that we’re quite divided as a society. Ideas are presented as very BLACK and WHITE and there doesn’t seem to be much room for GRAY or even for conversation and different opinions. Remember when we used to agree to disagree but we could still be friends and come together and appreciate one another?

When Hard Times Bring People Together

Do you remember after 9-11, which was one of the worst days of all time, at least in my lifetime, how people came together and took care of each other and were so amazing in their caring for others? It was awe-inspiring what humans did for other humans that were complete strangers to them. I feel like as a nation we rose up to take care of each other and to love each other through a supremely dark, terrible and scary time.

Have you noticed this? I think it often happens after natural disasters, I’m sure you’ve all seen those videos online of people helping others during a flood or even saving animals that are stranded and are surrounded by water. Don’t those things just make your heart feel like it’s glowing? You just get this warm feeling that runs over your body, and you are so impressed by people taking care of each other. At least that’s how I feel.

How This Situation Feels Different

With so much media at our fingertips and the fact that we tend to choose to spend time with people who are similar to us, including in their opinions, it seems the sentiment is that we’re battling against the other side. And that if we just put our opinion out there enough, that we can change people to our side. Let’s think about this for a minute… has anyone ever changed your mind about something by forcefully presenting it to you, being unrelenting in their drive to get you to see their side, possibly even through anger and maybe even insinuating that you’re an idiot if you don’t agree with them? I know my mind hasn’t ever been changed that way.

In this difficult situation that the entire world happens to be in together, at the same time; I feel that instead of using it as an opportunity to come together and support each other, that it has been used as an opportunity to drift apart. No wonder we feel lonely!

How We Can Flip the Script

Chances are that COVID isn’t going to disappear soon, and that we will still be dealing with this situation for a while. So how can we change our perspective now and start to support each other more?

Look for Things in Common INSTEAD of Differences

If we focus on things in common, and characteristics that we admire about others, soon it doesn’t become hard to appreciate them. As we’ve all heard, if everyone was the same, life would be really BORING. So let’s start to appreciate our differences. I suggest when you’re working on this, don’t be on social media. Maybe start out with a hard one, someone you know who’s been driving you crazy with their opinions lately. Take a moment, take a few deep breaths, be in a quiet space, maybe have some water or tea or coffee, get in a relaxed state. And then try to find some commonalities you have with them. You could also think about things you like about them that you might not have in common with them. Maybe even write them down. Once you have a few, take a moment, close your eyes, and really focus on those commonalities you have with them and things you like about them. Did it make you have a little more compassion towards them?

Do you think you could find at least one thing you like about most people you come into contact with? How would you feel about them if you focused on that quality instead of the thing you don’t like about them? What if you did that for a whole day with each person you came into contact with? How would that day feel compared to a normal day? Probably pretty good, right?

An Example - Driving

Here’s an example I feel we can all relate to. You’re driving down the road and someone is absolute idiot driving near you. They might have cut you off or not put their blinker on until the last second, or maybe they slammed on the breaks out of nowhere, for no reason. Maybe they ran a light. I’m sure you can think of an example from your own life.

I think most people’s natural reaction is to think something along the lines of “What an idiot,” or “that person is a jerk!” Believe me, that’s my natural instinct too. One day I was thinking about this, and I realized there are some people that I really love, that aren’t always the best drivers. Sometimes, I make driving mistakes, that I know to the people driving around me are obnoxious. It wasn’t that I did them on purpose, a situation or distraction came up and I made a mistake. So if we know that sometimes we make these mistakes, and sometimes people that we love drive this way. What if you pretended that everyone that was driving down the road was someone you loved or a friend? Take a beat to think about that and let it sink in, because it’s a very different way to think about the drivers around you.

Well I tried this, and as you can probably imagine, this REALLY changes your driving experience. Now when someone makes a stupid driving mistake, you think something like “I wonder if they’re having a bad day,” or “maybe their kids are screaming in the car,” or “perhaps they didn’t get any sleep last night,” or “maybe they’re studying for a big exam and they’re exhausted,” or “they might’ve had a really bad day at work.” It makes you think about that driver in a different light if you’re thinking that way, right? It injects a little more humanity into the situation instead of instantly getting frustrated or upset by what and idiot you think they’re being. I can tell you from experience, when I was doing this, it made me feel SO much more peaceful and calm while driving, and it gave me a greater sense of understanding. This reminds me that I need to start doing this again, because I’ve fallen out of the habit, but it made driving so much better! An easy way to start to think this way if you want to try it, is to imagine when you’re driving or in traffic, that you and a bunch of friends are all going somewhere together and you’re driving in a caravan type scenario. That you’re a group of people all going to the same place to have fun and hang out. That has a different feel, right?

Change the Topic of Conversation

Have you noticed that it’s super common during conversations for people to bring up COVID, vaccines, restrictions, limitations, the pandemic? Change the topic! Talk about something more uplifting; maybe a cool new thing you learned, something that made you laugh or smile, a challenge you overcame, something heartwarming, a great conversation you had recently etc. We used to have many varied things to talk about before all of this started, so let’s get back to talking about some other topics besides what’s just on the news! Be creative! Maybe talk about you dreams for the future, how you fell in love with your spouse, what cool new thing your kid or pet did, what your first job was, a wild date you went on, one of your favorite days/nights, or one of your favorite places you’ve traveled. Mix it up! Have fun!

Create a Compelling Future For Yourself

This is Tony Robbins idea, not mine. But it’s a great point! I’ve been doing a seminar of his this week and something he mentioned today is many people have lost their compelling future during this time of COVID. And if you don’t have a compelling future, you don’t have anything to look forward to to get you through a tough time. Because so much of the news has been about “we don’t know when this pandemic will end!” or sometimes you hear things like “this will never end.” Not a very compelling future, and exciting thing to focus on, right? No pandemic in history has lasted forever, even the plague ended, and that was one of the worst and the most deadly. So this too will end. Instead of making your main focus the pandemic. Take some time to think about your own compelling future.

Set aside a little bit of time, and you can do this exercise in whichever way you feel will fuel your vision. Sometimes our best visions and ideas happen when we are in a calm, cozy space, sometimes it’s when we are in a high energy state, and sometimes it can even be when we’re frustrated or pissed off because you want a big change. So find what works for you. One of my favorite environments for thinking about the future is a calm space. My set up would be similar to the following: in front of the fireplace with a warm cup of tea, a favorite candle burning or a delicious smelling essential oil in the diffuser. Music that I love in the background. The lights turned down low. I likely would be doing this in the evening, since I’m a night person. Cozy socks on. You get the idea. But pick your own favorite environment. Sometimes I also do this in an energetic state, I have music that makes me feel happy pumping through my headphones, and am dancing around the house. So whatever vibe you feel will be the most effective to you!

And then dream! And imagine your compelling future in your mind! A future that makes you excited, and happy, and joyful; a vison that makes you excited about life and enjoying the gift of each day that we are given here on this earth. Make it a detailed future, that is vivid in your mind. You can come back to this often and make the vision stronger, and clearer, and adapt it as you’d like. This vision could be about your family, your friends, your work, adventures, whatever you want it to be, and probably a little bit of all of those! And then spend some time focusing on your compelling future when you’re having a challenging time.

One quick example that’s just a little piece of my future vision, so you get an idea of what I’m talking about. For my 30th birthday, I wanted to have a giant dance party in our backyard. I thought we’d invite all the new neighbors that we had met that we enjoyed talking to, all our friends and family, and would have a fun, outdoor, dance session. Well, my 30th birthday was in July 2020, so that didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen in 2021. But I KNOW that for some future birthday, I want to have that big dance party in the backyard. So I imagine that big dance party often, I think about greeting people as they arrive, welcoming them to our home, I play the music that I want to dance to for that party and I dance around the house. I imagine what silly dance moves we’ll all make, and the merriment that will go with the day. I know someday I will have that birthday party. So I’m adding it to my vision of the future.

Have you ever taken time to plan your future?

Have you ever sat down to write out your plans and goals and dreams for the future? Once you think of your compelling future I encourage you to write it down, and refer to it as needed to help remind you, and to look back on it in the future and see how many things came to pass. Often, things don’t happen in the exact time frame that we want/hope for. Like that dance birthday party. However, if you’ve done this before and gone back a few years later to see what you wrote down, it’s amazing how so much of what you dreamed up came to pass.

One last example for you, and then this long blog post will be done, I promise! Before I met my husband, I was SO fed up with dating. I couldn’t find what I was looking for, and I was sick of the games that went along with it. A trusted mentor of mine told me “Ali, you haven’t been clear about what you want in terms of dating. You have the door wide open to include just about anybody. Decide what you want in a partner, and write it down! Be specific about everything you want, and then on the other side of the paper write down everything you don’t want, fold it in half and just refer to the things you want.” I’m sure some of you may have heard of this technique before. Well I did exactly that, I was not in a calm state, in fact I was rather pissed off, but I had a CLEAR vision of what I wanted, and what I didn’t. And I wrote fast and furious on this sheet of paper, starting with all the things I DIDN’T WANT (from experience), and then I wrote down everything I wanted in very specific detail. The kind of detail I mean is like “He has beautiful, thick hair", that was just one things on my very long list. I folded the sheet of paper to hide the things I didn’t want. And referred to the sheet once in a while.

Shortly after writing this list, I went to my first Tony Robbins event, and got rid of my limiting beliefs, these are things that hold you back from getting the things you want. A big limiting belief of mine at the time was that “I can’t find the guy that I’m looking for, he’s not out there, or he’s already with someone else.” Not a great thought when you’re in the dating world, right? Well I got rid of that belief. Right before I left for the seminar, I had matched with a guy on Bumble, and because of the seminar, we decided to meet up for a first date after the seminar. That guy is now my now husband.

After dating for a year, I found that sheet of paper, in a desk drawer. I had completely forgotten about it. I read through the list, and I was in shock, because every single thing that I had wrote out on the list, in a state of fury, the ultra specific things I wanted in a partner, Scott had all of those. I couldn’t believe it, I felt like I had been so picky in what I was looking for, and it was like Scott had been created from my list. Who he naturally was, was exactly what I had been looking for. Amazing. I actually gave Scott that list in his card with his first dating anniversary gift. He was surprised how much the list sounded like him too! So dream BIG and be specific in your vision friends!

If you need a little help…

Sometimes we all need a little help, and that’s totally ok! If you’re feeling stuck in your life, like you don’t know what to do next, or that you can’t get motived to make changes, or just burned out from the last couple years. I would be so happy to help you! I have 5+ years experience as a health and wellness coach and I would love to help you as a client. I also have my background as a health care provider, I’ve been practicing chiropractic for 7 years, including acupuncture (so I have western and eastern medicine perspectives) and many other therapies. I have a wealth of wellness knowledge and I’m constantly searching for new ways to help people! I have a free 30 min coaching call to all new clients if you want to try it out!

If you’re feeling stuck mentally, or physically, or in any capacity, I would love to help you :)

To schedule your free coaching call, follow this link! https://christiansonchiropracticpllc.as.me/schedule.php?appointmentType=19626655