Control

This past week has been a stressful one for me.  No matter what I do, I just can't seem to shake the anxiety that COVID-19 has produced in me.  It reminds me a lot of when I fly.  I am an extremely nervous passenger, although no one would notice as I appear to be extremely calm.  On the inside, however, my stomach is tied in knots.  I realize that it is irrational to worry about plane crashing on a commercial flight, espeically with the amount of data proving the safety of flying.   A couple of bad experiences with turbulence over the years, however, has left me feeling uneasy.  I have learned how to deal with the stress that riding in a plane causes me by tracking my panic level on a scale of 1-10 every fifteen minutes.  I have gotten so much better at flying over the past few years, that I do not always remember to keep track of my anxiety anymore.

Last night I realized that I could no longer feel as anxious as I was about COVID-19.  Keeping anxiety in tow on a two hour flight was one thing, but to do it daily during our quarantine had left me exhausted.  Thus, this morning I started to think about what I could control during this pandemic, and to stop the focus on what I had no ability to change.  After a lot of introspection I came up with ways to curb my anxiety.  I found Bible verses to study, a daily project to accomplish, a craft to keep me focused on, a series to watch, and a list of what we could do as a family to remain healthy now and when the stay at home order ended in Indiana.  By lunchtime I was already feeling a lot better and by the time Doug got home I could hear the world Coronavirus without panicking.  I was very happy about that.