I live in a drought affected region and it rained this week. Phew! Yipee! Rain dance some more!!!
Every time it rains you feel yourself get a little lighter inside. You have started to feel a little more optimistic, as if life may just start to get back to normal, even with this COVID thing going on.
For others, there may be a fear rise up inside of you, saying….”hang on there, what if we don’t get any more rain?”, or “What if COVID get’s worse”.
After 3 years of drought and what is going on in the world right now, it is more than normal to feel this way.
There is no doubt that the financial and emotional challenges of the past few years have had an impact, financially and emotionally. Even with a distant light at the end of the tunnel, you may still have an undercurrent of helplessness and hopelessness that you can’t fully shake off.
This is different to feeling ‘cautiously optimistic’. It is also different to depression. You literally fear emotionally investing in joy and pleasure and that it will be taken away from you. You may have started avoiding going out, seeing people, and doing things that make you happy, because you don’t think they will last. You may even avoid your family so that you are not a ‘kill joy’.
There are two fears that may have been triggered by intense stress and trauma from an event or a series of events. Cherophobia is the fear of happiness and Hedonophobia is the fear of feeling pleasure.
As human’s we are wired to protect ourselves and to survive. These types of fears are part of our primal fight of flight response to fear or the sympathetic nervous system. In todays world we are there is an over dominance of this system. The more stressed we are the more dominant our fight or flight response. Some of the side effects of living with stress include:
- Hard time sleeping, with light sleep and vivid dreams
- Bloating and other digestive issues
- Hormone imbalances
- Muscle tension that impacts your bone alignment
- Anxiety and depression
- Difficulty losing weight, and the list goes on…
In the case of Cherophobia and Hedonphocia, you are in flight mode…. running away from the uncomfortable feelings.
What you want to do is engage your parasympathetic system, or our rest and digest response.
Here are 5 things you can do to support yourself with the fears above and help to switch from fight or flight to rest and digest.
- Every change starts with a decision. Decide to address the fear.
- Find a reason to go beyond the fear. A way to do this is to know your top 5 values and make them the priority instead of the fear.
- Accept the discomfort and know that it is temporary. Feelings only last for 40 secs, unless we keep investing in the same thought that causes that feeling. Change the thought change the feeling.
- Support yourself through the fear with self-compassion. Speak to yourself soothingly, as if you are comforting a dear friend. Remember to breathe – take deep and even breaths.
- See someone who can help you with strategies, helping you to grow your sphere of resilience so that you can withstand future upheavals and hurdles.