Got post pandemic anxiety? Here's how to set some helpful boundaries.
Post-pandemic COVID anxiety is real let me tell you.
I’ve heard from small business owners who don’t know how they’ll be able to fit in all the networking meetings they used to attend in person.
There are folks who’ve been so good about staying home that stepping into a Target sends them into a panicked tailspin.
Others are afraid of coming out from behind their masks absolutely anywhere, because, well, how can you be sure?
Yet still some people know they want out of pre-pandemic commitments, but aren’t sure how to craft an escape plan.
Let me tell you this:
Whatever your concerns post-pandemic, you’re in excellent company. The months to come are a time of dipping, toe by toe, back into a lake of ‘normalcy.’ You’ve been through a TON, and life’s going to look different now than it did before.
So how do you get through it then? How can you address your anxiety and live a productive life moving forward?
What follows are four steps/aspects of re-forming your life with intention and purpose in a post-COVID world. In essence, it boils down to knowing who you are, framing your life to give you as much breathing room as possible, being honest with yourself about your wants and needs, and, finally, speaking up about it!
Step 1: Get clear about YOU.
The losses we’ve experienced individually and collectively throughout the COVID-19 pandemic are profound. From family members and friends who’ve succumbed to SARS-CoV-2 to being robbed of time with people we love to the loss of jobs and careers… well, it’s a lot to process.
Give yourself the time and space you need to process the hits you’ve taken. Grieve what’s no longer around or available. Bring ferocious love to bear on the pieces of yourself that are unspeakably crippled right now.
At once the spark of opportunity points not only to hope and recovery, but also to yet unimagined improvement. You know now, from your lived experience, that life can look absolutely any number of ways. You know what you most miss from life pre-pandemic. You know what you’re dreading to go back to post-pandemic. These three points of knowing, if you pay attention, point you toward the next right step.
What’s possible? Spoiler: anything. Take some time to daydream up what’s possible.
What can you absolutely do without? Being up until 3AM at the bar and hungover the next day? Seeing people 5 nights out of 7? Working in an office with an open floor plan? Let these things fall by the wayside. If you need to, advocate for yourself for an accommodation. Put another way, what do you find drains your energy when you go do it now?
What do you miss so much you can taste it? For me it’s browsing the library and working at a coffee shop. What’s yours? What’re the things that fill your heart and make you giddy with peace or joy or both?
Another way you can do this is to make a list of ALLLLL the things you do in a day, a week, and a month. It might look like this:
Get up at 6AM
Brush teeth and shower
Eat oatmeal for breakfast
Drive 30 minutes to work
Talk to Larry from accounting for 15 minutes
Work on special projects
Staff meeting
Go out for lunch with Judy
Admin work and emails
Return phone calls
Drive 45 minutes home
Eat a grilled cheese for dinner
Take the dog for a walk
Binge-watch old episodes of GOT
Scroll IG while watching
Get in bed
Scroll IG until I pass out
Then, go through and rate all the things on that list on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being “ugh, noooo please don’t make me” and 10 being “OMG YESSSS! Can’t wait!” For the sake of example, your list might then look something like this:
Get up at 6AM (4)
Brush teeth and shower (7)
Eat oatmeal for breakfast (3)
Drive 30 minutes to work (3)
Talk to Larry from accounting for 15 minutes (8)
Work on special projects (9)
Staff meeting (2)
Go out for lunch with Judy (2)
Admin work and emails (4)
Return phone calls (7)
Drive 45 minutes home (3)
Eat a grilled cheese for dinner (2)
Take the dog for a walk (9)
Binge-watch old episodes of GOT (5)
Scroll IG while watching (5)
Get in bed (10)
Scroll IG until I pass out (2)
Notice anything that scores less than a 7. Devise a way out of those things, ASAP. For our list, this might look something like this:
Get up at 6AM (4) — see about changing schedule at work to start later; go to bed at 10:00PM regularly
Eat oatmeal for breakfast (3) — Experiment with no breakfast; make a breakfast burrito
Drive 30 minutes to work (3) — See about telework options; experiment with leaving 10 minutes earlier.
Staff meeting (2) — See if these can be 1-1 meeting with supervisor; ask for someone to bring the notes/highlights
Go out for lunch with Judy (2) — Tell Judy I can’t make it, but I hope she enjoys her time out! Go for a walk instead.
Admin work and emails (4) — See about getting an intern or assistant. Set up autoresponder so I can check emails once weekly instead of daily.
Drive 45 minutes home (3) — see above…
Eat a grilled cheese for dinner (2) — Check out pricing for at-home meal kits and order a few to try out.
Binge-watch old episodes of GOT (5) — Stop by the library and check out a book; have a longer walk with the dog; Take a bath
Scroll IG while watching TV (5) — Set up time limits on my phone, for 30 minutes of social media; call a friend
Scroll IG until I pass out (2) — Listen to an audio book or podcast.
And so on and so forth. Once you’ve got your list down, pick ONE thing that seems doable. Just one. Take a few weeks and do that thing! After a few more weeks, tackle something else on your list and do that. And so on and so forth.
In this way, you’ll carve out more of what you love while minimizing what you don’t. Will there likely always be a touch of a bit of something you’d rather not? Sure… taxes have to be done every year, and some emails just need a reply. But overall, the better it gets, the better it gets!
Step 2a: Start to reframe (“have to” vs “choose to”)
“Okay, sure, but some things I have to do… I can’t get out of being a parent or my job!”
First of all, you can absolutely wriggle out of absolutely anything. You choose not to because of your identity, values, and either real or imagined consequences.
You keep taking care of your kids when you’re exhausted because at the end of the day you brought them into this world, you love them, and it matters that you live up to the responsibility of being a good parent even when it’s hard.
You keep showing up to work because you enjoy being someone who’s reliable and you prefer to have a roof, clothing, food, and some money in the bank for a vacation now and again.
I don’t say this to belittle your choices or for the show of false positivity, but to highlight that how you frame your life matters. If you go to work saying “I’m choosing to go to work today” as opposed to “I have to go to work today” you’ve got more space and possibility to work with. You could choose not to go to work today. You could choose to accept your job for what it is with hope while you figure out what’s next, or you could choose to grumble and complain. It’s really 100% up to you.
Swap out “choose to” for “have to” and see what shakes loose in the process.
Step 2b: Continue the reframe (Selfish)
This is usually where the issue of selfishness comes up. “Okay, but I have to choose _____ because if I don’t, I’ll be selfish.”
Let’s digress and explore this nasty word for a moment.
First, there’s a gendered aspect here that’s often neglected. Women are called ‘selfish’ for any number of reasons: having children, not having children, working full time, working part time, taking a day off from work and/or family, spending money on herself for “non-essentials,” not being sociable enough… you name it. And so women, understandably, agonize about whether or not they can say no, say what they need, and set boundaries because whether or not they do, someone, somewhere (not infrequently, other women wrung out with fatigue and overwhelm afraid to be selfish themselves) will pin them down for being selfish.
It’s worth noting because I have never, never heard a man complain that if he says ‘no’ “They’ll think I’m selfish.” Men say no and move on about their business. They do or don’t have kids, they work full or part time, take a day off when they damn well please, spend money on frivolity and hunker down in their boxers and a bag of chips … no push back.
If you’re a woman struggling with the s-word, do me a favor and just keep this in mind. Use it as a litmus test to keep yourself in check: “If I were a man saying ‘no’ to this, would I be called selfish?” Likely the answer is ‘not even a little’ and you can go right about your business with nary a second thought.
Also consider: what words do you have tied up in selfish? Pride? Conceit? Capital-N Narcissism? Greed? Ego? What’s the issue with these, if any?
Self simply provides a reference point. My self is different from your self. We occupy different bodies, have different thoughts, ideas, experiences, desires.
AND that’s okay.
It’s interesting to note that the term “selfish” is said to have been coined in the 1630’s by a Presbyterian archbishop, despite the fact that neither the word itself nor its synonyms don’t show up in the Bible at all. This leaves me with oh so many questions about both the morality politics and gendered undertones we apply to the word today. Fair enough, I guess, since if we look it up in the dictionary, we find this:
Selfish:
concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one’s own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
arising from concern with one’s own welfare or advantage in disregard of others
Here’s what we miss though: you can’t pour from an empty cup, unless you’re pouring air.
You can consider someone else’s welfare all you want, but if you don’t have your own resources first, you’re going to do more harm than good.
Think of this: you’re at the beach and see someone flailing, possibly drowning. But you’re not a good swimmer. You’re here to sunbathe and enjoy the sounds of summer. But, you’re not selfish, so you run out into the water and try to save the person. You barely reach them, and even when you do you can’t swim, so in the end you’re both out there, stranded and drowning.
Correct selfishness is having the wherewithal to stop and say to yourself, “Hey, I don’t know how to swim! Let me go find someone who does.”
In other words, it’s not wrong to be “concerned excessively…with oneself.” Altruism is a stunning anomaly of nature, and if you’ve got the resources, by all means, extend kindness and generosity.
BUT/AND few women have all the resources they need, much less extra they can extend to someone else. Pro tip: if you’re tired, worn out, anxiety-ridden, depressed, angry, resentful, jealous… you do not have the resources you need. You’re stealing from yourself if you try to help in this state, and at a tremendously high cost.
Go get some swimming lessons before you try and rescue someone who’s drowning: reframe your ‘selfishness’ as ‘necessary and appropriate self interest.’
Step 3: Get clearer
What if your car was making a weird sound and you took it to a mechanic. The mechanic just walks up to your window and says “yep, that sounds weird. Could be anything, really. I don’t know what to tell you.” Then they just stare at you expectantly.
You’d be confused and incredulous, and probably looking for a new mechanic who would actually look under the hood and get their hands dirty to figure out what was wrong with it.
You’re the mechanic of your life, friend. You’ve got to pop the hood and get your hands dirty figuring out what’s going on under there if you want to fix it.
If you didn’t do the exercise of rating all of your activities, take 15 minutes right now and do it.
What’s your anxiety really about? Are you being honest with yourself about what you really want your life to look like? Who’s voice is in your mind’s ear about how life should look? Do you agree with them? What are you avoiding?
This is what it looks like to get your hands dirty, emotionally speaking.
Only when you start to look at these kinds of issues can you then figure out what boundaries you need to make space for them.
What boundaries you need to set in your marriage.
What boundaries you need to set with your friends.
What boundaries you need to set with your parents.
What boundaries you need to set with your kids.
What boundaries you need to set at work.
And, only once you know what boundaries you need to set can you move on to:
Step 4: Speak up for goodness sake!
Real talk: I’ve gone through most of my life being told “speak up!” Partially because my voice is what it is, and mostly because I’ve been afraid of being seen and then being judged. So I hushed up and stayed quiet.
It happens far less now than it used to for a multitude of reasons, but now it’s almost physically painful to see women, young and old, afraid to speak up for themselves. Afraid to ask for a different work schedule, or to walk back into the store and ask for money back because they were incorrectly charged.
What are you afraid of?? Being told no? Someone being falsely kind? Seeing what power your voice has? Being told to be quiet? Saying something wrong?
Pin that fear down and dissect it. Some folks tell themselves ‘it’s too much hassle,’ which might be true. More often there’s fear of something else the ‘hassle’ is hiding.
If you know what’s there you can start to work with it:
Don’t lie, no matter how ‘harmless.’ You’re harming the integrity of your voice, and hiding. Speak only what’s both true and kind to your understanding.
Read aloud to yourself in the morning, first thing, to get acquainted with the sound and power of your voice. Try on different voices as you go.
Read this article on the two steps to setting effective boundaries… then go do them!
Start small — ask a friend for a favor or feedback. Say ‘hello’ to someone you would otherwise walk past with a nod.
Role play with a friend or therapist. Don’t have someone to role play with? Join in on the next round of the Artful Boundary Mastermind.
Get acquainted with your anger. No other emotion will move your voice to its full strength.
Ask around. Curiosity is the water that wears down the stone wall that’s keeping you from where you’d like to be. The more you ask questions, the more you learn what’s possible. Need a different work schedule? Ask! Would you like a raise? Ask! Want to telework more days than not? Ask! Looking for a new job? Ask someone to look at your resume. If you’re feeling bold, you could even start to read books like Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, or check out The Persuasion Lab to learn how to negotiate.
If you’re not sure how to kick your anxiety and re-emerge into the world, tap into these resources: