My Dear Friends,
On this past Sunday, we were blessed with an awesome opportunity to worship. Today, I wish to contact you again that I might continue to assuage any fears. Of course, Coronavirus fears aren’t entirely unfounded, thus I wish to offer you several practical ideas to help manage your anxiety during this difficult period of time. Freelance writer Koren Miller has given four important ideas that allow us to stay safe.
- Try to limit your Coronavirus news consumption. Of course, we should be aware that Coronavirus is currently an issue and understand where its showing up in relation to us. However, there can be such a thing as too much news. Constantly reading Coronavirus update stories will not help our anxiety levels. Let’s limit our overall news intake to once every day or if we find our anxieties triggered by an overload of news, lets limit our attention to only reputable news sources. The more we expose ourselves to a scary topic over which we feel limited control, the more we feel anxious.
- Coronavirus is scary and it’s OK to realize that. Recognize that your anxiety is normal. Remember, Christ’s disciples had fear (fear of storms, fear of government, fear of their Lord leaving them). However, when we stress over the virus, we make our anxiety worse. Let’s follow guidelines as to how we can protect ourselves.
- Follow the correct preventive methods to protect against the Coronavirus.
- Try to avoid close contact with people who are sick.
- Try to avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. (For some of us this difficult. If I must touch my face, I use a clean tissue)
- Clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces using a disinfecting cleaning spray or wipe.
- Let’s wash our hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds especially after using the restroom, before eating and after blowing our noses, coughing or sneezing. If soap and water aren’t available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. “Doing all of the things we can helps us feel in control of the situation which can help ease our anxiety,” says Dr. Ken Yeager, psychiatrist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.
- Lastly let’s remind ourselves that we are doing the best we can in this situation. Dr. Yeager recommends that we participate in a “grounding technique” to calm down. That involves looking around us, recognizing when we are in a safe space such as our home and remind ourselves that we are doing the best we can. Know that we are keeping our homes, our hands, and surrounding space clean.
And above ANYTHING ELSE, pray…pray…pray – asking God to remain close to us in these difficult days. I am looking forward to being with you at Wednesday evening Bible Study and Sunday’s Worship Service via Zoom.
I love you all,
Pastor Jeanie