Emotions are a lot like bears

The urges are taking over my life – or that is kind of what a lot of us are feeling right now. For a lot of us this last 2 weeks have been really challenging. A lot of us are feeling trapped, stuck, and cooped up This is driving a lot of behavior that we have not used to buffer in a long time. For some of us it is eating – A lot of people are going to pornography – the data indicating that people are visiting illicit sites indicates a huge spike since the beginning of the covid outbreak. A lot of that is driving overwhelm, frustration and shame Our brains are really interesting machines. They do a couple of things really well and then they miss a couple of other really important things if we don’t manage them. So, the first thing our brains do really well, is they see danger in bad feelings. But something that is not a strength of our brain is distinguishing between bad feelings. Being chased by a bear feels bad. Being bored also feels bad. Which one is going to kill you? Your brain doesn’t know. So it throws something out there to keep you from feeling bad. In the case of being chased by a bear, people have been known to lay down and play dead as well as run screaming or even to stand up and face the bear, dealing with it head on. In the case of being bored, you have essentially the same three options, you can lay down and play dead, for me this looks a lot like depression. You can take off running, which is looking for adrenalin. So, food, pornography, social media Or you can stand up and face the boredom, feel it and deal with it head on. The big difference here is, when you face boredom, you know that eventually it will go away. That is not always the case with a bear. Now, if you were faced with a bear and you did any of those three things no one would judge you So, don’t pile shame on to your choice of how you choose to behave. Figure out how you want to behave ahead of time. Build in time for boredom Create. You have projects that you have been putting off. Engage your family