Rachel sits at home petting her cat. She is finding it hard to focus these days with the world experiencing a global pandemic. Only a few weeks ago her biggest concerns were the tension at work with her boss and whether that cute guy at her gym would ask her out. Now she doesn’t see either of them.
Now her concerns feel more serious. How will she make it being isolated alone for months? She worries about losing her job because many co-workers have lost theirs. Now she’s expected to do more work at home in the same about of time. And her dating life? Well, all this stress has her pushing it aside. She thinks, “Why would I want to add any more crazy feelings of anxiety to my life when I’m already feeling on edge about everything?” She kisses her cat and turns on another episode of Love is Blind.
It makes sense, doesn’t it? That when we feel a lot of stress that we want to avoid any potential feelings of discomfort in dating and relationships. I’m the first to admit that I’ve avoided relationships in my life so I wouldn’t have to risk confronting issues and feeling bad. However, pulling away from relationships at times has left me feeling painfully alone.
It’s understandable that we react this way if we’ve experienced past relationships where we felt unsafe or rejected. If you’ve had bad experiences in relationships in the past, of course you’d fear entering a relationship that could bring more feelings of insecurity, rejection or pain.
When we attempt to self-protect from feeling that kind of pain again, instead of seeking healing and moving toward a relationship, we actually miss out on the potential benefits of a good partnership. Supportive partnerships are known to lower stress levels in difficult circumstances, provide more physical contact with direct health benefits and give us opportunities to work through interpersonal communication in order to experience exponential growth beyond what any self-help book could do.
However, even if we know this to be true, why, for some of us, does it become hard to lean towards a partnership in the middle of stressful times? Even while we’re in a partnership we can become more reactive to our partners and therefore pulling away, manipulating or blaming others for the intense feelings that we’re not so sure how to deal with on our own.
So whether you’re avoiding partnership altogether or find yourself pulling away in a partnership now that you’re spending more time together in the quarantine, here are a few suggestions to consider in order to lean towards relationships so that you can experience their live-giving benefits in a crisis:
Ask a Safe Person in Your Life to Listen - Whether you’re single or in a partnership, reach out to a safe person in your life and ask them if you can share honestly what you are experiencing right now. Ask them if they’ll give you 10 minutes to just listen and be willing to share what emotions are coming up for you so that you can be heard. In expressing yourself honestly, you are letting another person into your life and validating that what you’re experiencing is normal. While this seems simple, it can feel challenging to let yourself receive the emotional support that you need right now, believing that others are busy with their own problems. But it’s surprising what people are willing to give us when we ask for exactly what we need.
Let Your Emotions Move Through You - Moving towards relationships often requires first moving towards ourselves. What are we feeling now as we sit at home without our normal activities, distractions or numbing habits? Can you get in touch with what’s really going on when you say now is not the time for you to date? What do you really want from your partner right now? How did what your partner say honestly impact you? It can be easy under stress to default to ignoring our own emotions or trying to caretake everyone else’s emotions to avoid tuning into your own. How can you give yourself time to feel? You won’t feel angry or sad or alone for ever—emotions are meant to be felt and to move through you.
Take One Step Towards Relationship - Is there something that you normally resist doing in relationships because it feels too edgy? Maybe it’s sharing one level more intimately with a guy on a video date. Maybe it’s admitting first to a partner that you were wrong. What would it look like for you to decide to take one step towards relationship? This can be challenging if you are already feeling stress, but what if taking this step could result in a deeper connection that would support you emotionally and physically in this time—wouldn’t that be worth it?
Get Support to Do Something New - If you feel stuck because your relationships aren’t working, often getting support helps to do something different than what you’ve always done. Get the support of a friend before you decide to have that hard conversation with a partner about handling the kids. You could join a singles dating group, where you meet regularly to share your online dating experiences. Maybe it’s time to get professional support to work through your anxiety around men that paralyzes you from moving forward in a relationship. Whatever it is, getting support demonstrates a strength that you’re willing to give yourself what you need so that you can create a supportive relationship.
So if you’re hunkered down with your cat, enjoying the simplicity of their furry companionship, but deep down yearning to have more engaging conversations with a partner who gets you or have a nurturing physical connection with a partner that soothes your nervous system in stressful times, maybe it’s time to consider what ONE step you can take today to lean in towards relationship. Because while clothes, food, shelter, health, and furry companions are wonderful, what makes life meaningful amidst suffering is love.
From now until May 8th, I’m offering ten individual coaching sessions around a relationship challenge you may be experiencing in the COVID quarantine. Click here to answer a few questions to reserve your session.