Little wonder we’re anxious in these troubled times

I’ve been thinking recently about the present time and what it is exactly that affects us all so much.  We all respond differently, but there’s a tremendous anxiety being felt right now.  

I know it helps to identify the stressors, to assess what we can change opposed to what needs to be accepted.  Here is an attempt at locating the stressors that are bombarding us:

Even though all our lives have been lived in the shadow of the concept of World War III, it still bewilders us as we approach what looks like it will slide that way.  We’re forgiven for feeling like “this can’t be happening.”

We’re in grief, even if many of us are reeling from the fallout of the pandemic.  The last thing we imagined when life was promising to start to get back to normal was something even worse than a pandemic.  That is the very definition of anxiety—feeling utterly helpless when we watch our TV screens, witnessing a genocide of trauma in real time.

One of the direct impacts of war is the increase in the cost of living, food, and fuel.  Prices are hiking up as we speak, and our financial welfare is directly linked to our mental health.

The issue of climate change is finally becoming accepted globally.  As we reconcile what the science tells us, that irreversible change has taken place, and now that the planet is so sick, we’re in damage control to limit the catastrophe from unfolding in our lifetimes, and in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.

There’s also an ambient sense of division in society generally.  I don’t know if you’ve detected it, but I’ve often wondered how miserable the world has been getting.  When people are miserable, they usually look at others to blame.

When entire societies are ripping each other apart, we must wonder what’s causing it.

Moreover, we’ve all got a huge number of things in our individual and family lives that create anxiety in us.  These in a very truthful sense are even bigger issues to us than war, the cost of living, climate change, and an angry society.

Little wonder we’re feeling so anxious in these troubled times.

Little wonder we feel out of control.

For so long now we’ve all been living in a state of prolonged and exhausting uncertainty.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the first step to overcoming our mental health challenges is to first understand what they are, where they’re coming from, and then look at them objectively.

Once we’ve had that chat with ourselves about the sources of our stress then we can ask ourselves what can be done.  Do we change how we think?  Do we accept what we can’t change?  Do we endeavour to change what we can?  And most important who can we share our burdens with and how can we give others support too?