Some People are Painting Rainbows
Let’s not miss the good in the bad. Let’s use our own creativity and make a souvenir to remember this wild trip by. All the things that seemed unthinkable that have become everyday. We need to write it all down . . .
Do you feel like a pioneer yet? Are you doing things you never thought you would do? Cutting your own hair, home schooling your kids, baking your own bread, making do with whatever you have in the larder? This time is going to go down in history. Let’s not miss the hidden gift.
Alice Sommers, the oldest living Holocaust survivor who died at 106 said, “Even the bad is good if you know where to look for it.” Let’s not be so focused on the bad that we miss the opportunity to experience the good. The universe has pressed the reset button. Mother Nature has sent us all to our rooms to think about what we are doing to this planet. Let’s not skip that lesson.
This is a time of creativity bursting out everywhere. Some talking dog YouTube videos are so funny that people are laughing till they cry. I was invited to an international dance party. People are writing songs. Balconies are the new concert halls. Here in Montreal, we stood on our balconies and sang Leonard Cohen songs. In Italy, they’re singing the national anthem and playing accordion for the neighbors. People are cooking. My friend heard of a woman who is drawing a flower every day. I heard that kids are painting rainbows and sticking them in the front windows.
People are resilient, self-reliant, resourceful. We’re not bothering our doctors with small issues, our dentists’ offices are closed except for emergencies. We’re figuring work-arounds to make things happen. The organic grocer is taking orders, bagging your things and passing the bags to you through the front door. You pay online.
Let’s not miss the good in the bad. Let’s use our own creativity and make a souvenir to remember this wild trip by. All the things that seemed unthinkable that have become everyday. We need to write it all down. The schools are closed, restaurants are closed, we don’t meet our friends, we don’t go into work, Stephen Colbert did the Late Show from his bathtub. We couldn’t have imagined this!
As much as we’re avoiding each other, we’re reaching out to each other. Checking in. We have more time now that we’re not commuting, now that some of us are not working. We can contact our cousin in Tucson. We can have dinner parties with all of the guests eating at home connected by Zoom. Young people are distributing flyers offering to go grocery shopping for old people. We sign our emails to our friends with “Be well and stay safe.”
I honor the check-out workers at the supermarket. I send love to my mailman. I bow down to the nurses, doctors, ICU staff, respiratory therapists. I pay reverence to the hospital cleaners and kitchen staff. I appreciate the public officials who are working hard. The doormen, bus drivers. I don’t forget the garbage men and those that work in the recycling plant. We see you. We honor you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Namaste.
Families are coming together or exploding apart. People are out strolling in household clusters. Husbands and wives are fighting. The stakes are high. Beautiful moments are experienced with kids. Vicious fights taking place at 4am with everyone listening. When this is all over, the landscape will have changed.
We have more time. The world has become a village. Every day is Shabbat. The skies are fresh and pollution is clearing because people aren’t driving. We’re cleaning our closets. Taking the dog for long walks. Doing Yoga with Adriene. Meditating. Taking up running.
How about keeping a journal on paper so you can remember it all? You can make one if you don’t have an old one in the back of the closet. Keep notes on events and thoughts. How are you feeling today? How did you sleep? Any bizarre dreams? Suffering? What’s the latest unthinkable thing that is happening? What are people saying?
Write it all down and then use your creativity. Put color in it, paste something into it, a quote, make a drawing, insert a photo that you can print on your printer. Make it beautiful, or raw, or painful, or full of fear but express it. And then express it again later in the day or tomorrow.
This is one for the books. Let’s not let it pass us by in a haze of anxiety, selfishness and fear. As Ryan Holiday said, the obstacle is the way. We can use this crisis as a springboard for growth and change, love and kindness, courage and grace. Embrace it. Breathe.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
We Will Muddle Through This Together with Courage and Grace
If you can stay in the present moment, do some exercise, don’t let yourself awfulize and remember that this is not going to last forever, we’ll all muddle through this. You’re going to have to be tough and not spill your worries on your children or any other vulnerable person in your life. You can do this! . . .
I’m struck by how this crazy virus crisis is the same as being hit by Wife Abandonment Syndrome. You’re going along, living your life, unsuspecting, and then something unthinkable happens out-of-the-blue. Your whole pattern of living changes in a short period of time, new revelations unfolding day after day. You keep hoping that it’s not true, that there’s been some mistake, but there’s no turning back.
You think longingly of your secure past, when the world made sense but now you’re living with an uncertain future. You don’t know if your finances will ever recover. You worry about how it’s going to affect your kids. You’re managing a sense of fear and threat all day long. The landscape of your life is unrecognizable.
Whew! Double whammy! For those of you who have newly experienced wife abandonment, I can’t imagine what you’re going through. At least, you know you’re not alone - you and everyone else on this planet are in the same boat! The coronavirus crisis most likely stirred the cauldron of emotion about your husband’s departure. You may be feeling acutely alone and worrying about who will take care of you if you get sick. It may have awoken your anger that he is with someone and has abandoned you to your fate.
Like wife abandonment, in the current crisis there’s no way around it - you have to go through it. It forces you to work on yourself, to be calm and not spiral out of control. It requires that you strengthen your mind and figure out how to tame your emotions.
You need to stay in the present moment. Most probably, if you had never heard of the coronavirus, you’d be more or less fine (okay - just dealing with the runaway husband). It’s spring and the trees are budding, the flowers are coming out here in the northern hemisphere. We worry about what will happen but if we could just stay in the here and now, it would help. We’ll deal with whatever will come when it comes. Like they say in AA - one day at a time.
This is how I’m coping. I’m quarantined and working remotely with clients so I’m pretty much home most of the time other than taking the dog for a walk. So I start the day early with a half hour meditation and that’s very important. It’s a mini-vacation for my mind.
During that half hour, I try to keep my focus on the meditation and as my mind wanders away like a frisky puppy, I summon it back. Some days it’s easier than others but I always feel better after meditating. And, by the way, there are sometimes other women from our Community meditating at the same time using Insight Timer (the link is on the Runaway Husbands website) and I love that! If you want to join, you don’t need to commit to a half hour. Start with ten minutes and slowly work up over a few weeks. Just do it every day. It will do you good.
Another thing I’m doing is some form of exercise - usually yoga. I tune into a YouTube channel called Yoga with Adriene. She’s a sweetheart yoga teacher who lives in Austin, Texas and has dozens of classes of all different levels and durations. It’s very low tech and you know she’s a good person. Her dog, Benji, is often just lying around near her yoga mat. So there’s another hour when I’m not thinking about the coronavirus.
I’m cooking good food and walking in the sun and I’m more in touch (remotely) with family and friends than I typically have time for. And, of course, I’m lucky because I’m very busy with work.
If you can stay in the present moment, do some exercise, don’t let yourself awfulize and remember that this is not going to last forever, we will all muddle through this. You’re going to have to be tough and not spill your worries on your children and any other vulnerable person in your life. You can do this!
It’s always important to strengthen your health, don’t eat or drink too much and quit smoking, if you smoke. And at some point in the future, you’ll say, “Remember that crazy time in 2020 when the world was reeling from the coronavirus? Wow! That was intense.” And life will go on.
Just know that I’m thinking about you. If you’re on our Runaway Husbands Community Facebook page, tune in to my Facebook live Q&A (7:30pm eastern on Wednesdays), when I answer questions and just connect with you. We’re a community and now, more than ever, we need to support each other with loving kindness.
Stay well and share your thoughts below.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Alright anxiety - enough! Be gone! I’m in charge now!
We all know that awful feeling - anxiety. It’s amazing how powerful it can be and how lousy it can make you feel. It can be so intense that you may think you’re having a heart attack or even, losing your mind! As a therapist, I’m always impressed at how powerful the mind is! Read on . . .
We all know that awful feeling - anxiety. It’s amazing how powerful it can be and how lousy it can make you feel. It can be so intense that you may think you’re having a heart attack or even, losing your mind! As a therapist, I’m always impressed at how powerful the mind is!
It feels like we have very little control over anxiety which has tricked you into thinking that it’s the boss and totally in charge. It may make you feel hesitant to go out and do things, worried about meeting acquaintances in the street, sick to your stomach imagining your future. You need to know, however, that you actually have a lot more power over anxiety than you think.
Anxiety can’t exist without some kind of physical sensation associated with it. If the thought crosses your mind, “What if I can’t afford to keep the house?” and your body doesn’t react with queasiness or tightness or a pit in your stomach, then that is only a thought and won’t make you miserable.
When anxiety descends on you, it’s so physical that even people around you can see it. Your forehead furrows, your mouth gets tense and someone might ask, “What’s wrong?” It’s the physical aspect of anxiety that creates havoc. If you can get to a state of relaxation, anxiety doesn’t have a chance.
The good news is that you don’t have to continue to let anxiety be the boss. You can learn to retrain your thoughts which will lead to your body becoming more relaxed and less under the thumb of anxiety. The fix is in a two-way change:
Become aware of the thinking processes that ramp up that awful feeling and start practicing short-circuiting that thought pattern.
Work on your physical body to become a Olympic relaxer so that you can have techniques at your fingertips to calm the body as needed.
To start, you have to become aware of your thinking processes. Many thoughts are worries about things that will never happen. Become a detective and search out those limiting thoughts and remind yourself, “That’s a worry, not a fact.” Train yourself to recognize the thoughts that serve no purpose other than to disturb you. That’s just anxiety bossing you around. Work on consciously reducing the power of those limiting thoughts.
Secondly, you have to incorporate relaxation into your daily life, in whatever form you can - and I don’t mean sitting in front of the TV watching The Bachelorette! I mean conscious, purposeful relaxation - walking, stretching, breathing exercises, listening to a relaxation tape, t’ai chi, yoga, biking, swimming, dancing - anything that tends to the body and uses the right side of the brain. You have to make it a priority to devote those minutes a day to your emotional health.
If anxiety is a big player in your life, try to find a CBT therapist who specializes in treating anxiety - not every therapist does - and work on it so you can get free and get your life back. Keep reducing your worry thoughts and incorporating conscious relaxation into your life. I know it will help.
What tricks do you use when you realize anxiety is starting to boss you around? What new things could you incorporate into your life? Let me know in the comments below.
Are you a woman whose husband suddenly left? Click here for more resources to start your healing process.
Hi! I’m Vikki and I'll be your guide in your recovery process from Wife Abandonment Syndrome. I’m a therapist but also an abandoned wife like yourself and I know what it feels like. I want to help you not only bounce back, but to discover a new you in the process.
