How Too Reverse Engineer Your COVID-19 Fear

If you live or go to work in the Calgary NW around the Crowfoot business area, you’ll definitely see smaller numbers of people in the area with stores closed and office buildings way more vacant. This of course is due to the newest Fear of the dreaded COVID-19 virus. Let’s look at ways you can support yourself in isolation in order to begin facing your worst fears.

1. Recognize the source of your fear.

Although the obvious answer might be “it’s the virus” causing fear, I want you to encourage you to go deeper than just the simple answer and begin telling yourself what the root sources of your fears are so you know how deep your fears go in order to combat your fears. For some it could be the insecurity of just not knowing what is going on. It could be knowing that you have 1 roll of toilet paper left. Lack of knowledge will always cause panic, such as the toilet paper crisis. We are all encountering scarcity due to lack of knowledge, such as COVID-19 does not cause diarrhea (from my current understanding of the virus).

Let’s go even deeper to uncover what our fears might be. Maybe you are not quite a senior, but close enough to be scared that you might catch the virus. Maybe you are immune compromised and are thinking, great, I catch a cold even if I just walk outside.

This of course leads to in-depth fears that we must first recognize before we confront and reverse engineer fear. You might be afraid that you will be rejected by society if you get even just a runny nose. You’re afraid that essentials such as food, clothing and water will not be available. You might even be facing current fears such as being laid off work, actually been laid off work, and not knowing how the mortgage is going to be paid of… And here’s the biggie: You might be fearing the primary fear of dying from this virus, or having a loved one die, or has already died from COVID-19 and that totally terrifies you.

2. Beware of counter intuitive moves based on your personal fears.

One of the sad and ironic things about fear is that it causes people to go into panic mode which means you’re cutting off the front part of your brain known as the pre-frontal cortex. When we are not walking daily life in a safe, calm, and caring way, we are in essence setting ourselves up for impulsive moves that will cause us to potentially regret our actions later.

Back in the days of black and white movies, one of the wealthiest people of the day was known as Howard Hughes. Howard, near the end of his life, had extreme anxiety and fear based on catching germs. He was known to walk in bare feet in shoe boxes and grow his nails out in order to prevent catching germs. Yes, the very things Howard was trying to prevent, he ended up creating more opportunities for germs to enter his life.

Now let’s look at a counter intuitive move I’ve seen people do recently using Hand sanitizer as an example. As soon as the COVID-19 information was released by media, there was an obvious increase in the usage of hand sanitizer. Not that I have any issues in the use of hand sanitizer, however, my concern was that I saw multiple people go way beyond the one hand pump. Instead, people were pumping 2, 3, 4 times the needed amount in the name of keeping germs away from them. Counter intuitively what also was happening with these individuals was the sad possibility that they might have actually increased there risk for catching the COVID 19 virus due the fact that the more hand sanitizer you use, the more your skin will dry out and potentially expose any cuts or dry skin cracks to potentially contract this terrible virus. What was meant for good, out of fear, has the potential to cause the very thing trying to be prevented.   

3. Practice reverse engineered fear strategies.

In order to reverse engineer our own personal fears and anxieties we have to begin looking at increasing our capacity to deal with fear. The simplest way, just like using soap and water when washing your hands, is to:

• Breathe deeply to calm your central nervous system and to get your brain to think and feel calm.
• Get educated on the ways of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
• Consider Limiting the amount of media (television, computer, radio) you are viewing to decrease feelings of panic.
• Learn grounding techniques from your counsellor to support you in calming your fears.
• Consider online counselling from a registered professional counsellor to work on the core issues of your fears and anxiety.

Please remember to stay safe, calm and caring and lets work together to walk in courage.