When times are dark, it can be quite hard to see the positives. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us have faced loss, financial struggles, employment stresses, and health challenges. We’ve all had our worlds turned upside down, and some have adapted better than others. Have you ever think about the positive outcomes of Covid-19?
An uptick in the obsessive-compulsive disorder has meant more people experiencing increased symptoms and therapists learning new best practices. Stress, loneliness, and anxiety are affecting people of all ages.
Could there be anything positive to come out of all this darkness? Think for a moment about the ways your life has changed over the past year, and can you imagine the positive outcomes of Covid-19?
- Have you learned to slow down?
- Have you adjusted your spending habits?
- Are you spending more time with the people who matter?
- Do you find you’re living more for today?
- Have you retrained yourself to look for the light in the dark?
Many of us have used these challenging times as the impetus to re-boot, re-balance, and re-evaluate the things we once thought were important. Suddenly, mindless spending and time-wasting have taken a back seat to more valuable intangibles like quality time, putting money aside in the face of uncertainty, and taking care of ourselves and our loved ones.
We have learned to slow down.
When the pandemic first hit and the world was figuring out how to adjust, everything just slowed down. Well-established routines flew out the window; business became anything-but-usual; all those demands on our time ground to a screeching halt.
We began to discover that life was not all about work, juggling crammed schedules, and racing from Point A to Point B. Suddenly, our days started to include taking walks, taking breaks for lunch, taking time to read a book or make a phone call. Many of us even discovered that it’s okay to do nothing for a while.
We learned how to slow down and regroup, rebalance, and recharge.
We have adjusted our spending to focus on the things that matter.
Besides buying necessities, there hasn’t been a reason to spend our money. We haven’t had to buy clothes for work, haven’t been able to travel or eat out in restaurants, and many of us have stopped buying big-ticket, frivolous things.
64% of Americans have changed their spending habits during the pandemic.
If you’re like most people, you’re spending your money on things that matter way more: your pets, soul-gratifying purchases, and daily necessities.
Hopefully, spending less has taught you two things: first, that you can make do with a lot less spending, and secondly, how good it feels to be saving a little money. Those habits are good ones to carry with you into the future once we land on the other side of the pandemic and it is a positive outcome of Covid-19.
We are spending time with people who really matter.
When the going gets rough, it’s natural to want to gather those we love close to us. The pandemic has pushed this to the extreme by forcing us –quite literally– to spend all our time with those people in our immediate bubble. We’re also maintaining connections with those who are physically distant and not spending time on people who don’t matter. This is enabling us to focus on deepening relationships with those people who do matter.
But spending so much time together isn’t always a good thing, especially for those couples in relationships that were shaky going into the pandemic. Divorce rates may be down, but dissatisfied couples are staying together for practical reasons.
Psychotherapist Toni-Herbine-Blank counsels people on how to reclaim passion and explore the self-to-self connection in her Intimacy From The Inside Out© approach to couples therapy. “Change your conversation, and you’ll change your relationship. See how you are speaking and listening,” Herbine-Blank advises both parties in any relationship.
Join this upcoming webinar to discover how you can use the Internal Family Systems (IFS) Model to help couples discover different ways of developing deeper connections.
Toni Herbine-Blank presents:
Intimacy from the Inside Out©: Integrating the Interpersonal and the Intrapsychic in Couples Therapy Using the Internal Family Systems Model
Friday, April 23, 2021
1:00 pm – 4:15 pm ET
Teach both parties of a couple how to take steps to feel loved and understood by uncovering what they want to create and what is getting in the way of creating that in the relationship.
We are living more for today.
We are living for today simply because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. Recent events have shown that anything can change in an instant, so it makes sense to savour the moments, embrace your relationships, and be happy with what you have.
Pack as much joy as you can into each day; banish disappointment and regret. Clean your metaphorical house so that you are free to focus on the here and now.
- We are re-training ourselves to focus on the bits of happiness in dark times.
Research has shown us that positivity plays a huge role in our well-being. Maria Sirois is a positive psychologist who focuses on the resilience of the human spirit when under chronic stress or in the face of huge change or loss. She uses engagement and positivity to help individuals shift perspectives in the face of darkness.
Join Maria Sirois’ upcoming webinar to coach clients on how to balance the difficult and positive during dark times.
Maria Sirois, PsyD, presents:
Happiness in Dark Times: The Role of Positivity in Catalyzing Resilience
Tuesday, June 15, 2021
1:00 pm – 4:15 pm ET
Explore how positive psychology-based practices can help catalyze resilience through increased engagement, optimism, and meaning.
Summing it all up
Nobody knows what life will look like once we emerge from the other side of this pandemic. Only time will tell. But hopefully, some of the positive outcomes of Covid-19 that we’ve learned from this challenging situation will hang around well into the future.