Ep. 170: Skills to Get Through Quarantine

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. As you all know, I traveled back to Australia to visit family last month. The Australian government requires a 14 day quarantine for any visitors coming into the country. When my plane landed, I was escorted by police to a hotel in Sydney. I was then taken to my room and told that under law, I am not allowed to leave or even open a window for 14 days. Now that I am home and reflecting on my time in Australia, I really want to share with you some of the skills that I had to practice all day every day to get me through that quarantine. I hope some of these skills can also help you when you are facing a difficult situation.

The first skill was to become an observer to my thoughts. It is quite common to be feeling fine and out of nowhere this overwhelming sense of panic takes over and you start to think "Oh my goodness I can't handle this." When this happens, you really have to recognize that you are not in danger. This thought can be so powerful that if you don't work to simply observe it, it can easily become truth or fact in that moment. By observing your thoughts, it actually helps you to diffuse from them which takes away some of their power.

The second skill is to validate your pain. Once you have observed the thought, it is so important to validate that this is really hard. Try being gentle with yourself and not engaging in self-judgment.

The third skill is to keep a routine. Now this does not mean keeping a compulsive, rigid routine; rather, simply take an inventory of what is important to you and make sure you schedule those activities into your day. For me, this meant scheduling phone calls with my family and friends.

The fourth skill is to become aware of your small wins. It is so easy to become negative in a situation such as quarantine which is why it is so incredibly important not to discount your little wins. You may also want to try finding pleasure in the small moments or delights of your day. When you are deprived of pleasure, it is easy to overlook those little moments of joy, but it is important to recognize them when they appear.

The final skill is one you hear me talk about a lot and that is "It's a beautiful day to do hard things." So many people have said to me that they could never do what I did. The thing to remember is that you actually can. It may be hard, but you can do it if you chose. When those moments of doubt creep in that you can't handle something or you can't do this anymore, just remember that you are so much stronger than you think.

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