Social distancing because of covid can be doubly stressful while we are healing from infidelity. Both can left us with emotional ongoing wounds. Nothing feels normal when living with the stressful impact they cause in our lives. In this post I want to discuss coping with the trauma of infidelity alongside the threat of covid.
I had a lovely birthday this week even though I am in a covid lockdown here on my little island. And I wanted to share a photo of my delicious healthy cake. I promise that it is even yummier than it looks.
Part of my self-care is avoiding sugar, and we cover eating to heal in our self-care course. Eating well supports our bodies while we heal, as well as setting the stage for reducing our stress.
Infidelity and living with this covid worldwide pandemic can be doubly stressful.
Trauma is defined as an “attack” on our well-being from an outside source, which happened when we discovered our partner’s infidelity. But a POTENTIAL threat is not a traumatic experience. The potential threats covid brings up for us is that either we or someone we love becomes seriously unwell from it, resulting in hospitalization, long-covid, or worst.
A threat is a call for action to protect ourselves and those we care about as best we can. But the chronic stress and anxiety infidelity caused can interrupt your brain’s instinctual ability to be focused and attentive in our present moment. It can compromise our problem-solving and decision-making skills needed to initiate strategies that keep us safe.
Being caught up in grief can leave us mindlessly existing and just surviving from moment to moment. Yet, we now live in a time when we need to be minimizing the threats of covid.
At times covid has had us under “house arrest” which is stressful
We know that solitary confinement can cause psychological distress and that any form of isolation can make us more prone to worrying about our futures.
Yes, the stress and worry we experience due to social distancing are generated in our minds because our thoughts create stress. Yet, the extended duration of this pandemic can have us consistently ruminating over and confronted with its impact. And this ongoing stress can leave many people with emotional wounds and a loss of hope for their futures.
Couple that with the negative impact of infidelity, the grief, the ramifications it generated in our lives, the worry about what may or may not happen to us. These can all leave wounds that last for years within us.
Trauma within our homes and threat outside our homes can challenge our ability to see meaningful futures. Meaningfulness is an essential component for life satisfaction, welling, and happiness.
Good decision making is essential after infidelity
We need healthy minds and bodies to generate energy and clear-headed thinking to make the best possible decisions. Making good decisions is essential in facing both this pandemic and our relationship breach to create hope and meaningfulness in our lives.
Self-care trains us to become aware of how our bodies and minds feel. It teaches us to see when our anxiety is rising and gives us tools to relieve it. And it invites us to pay attention to our mental stresses, tension, and worrisome thoughts so that we can generate better thoughts.
Chronic worry and stress can exhaust us and compromise our immunity against covid
By immersing ourselves in self-care, even in a matter of seconds, we can generate a state of relaxation. Both covid, and infidelity healing, will be with us for a long time. And now is the time to prioritize our self-care.
We don’t have to live in survival mode; we want to be in self-care mode.
Healing, accepting our losses, and creating a life we love, helps sustain us through this doubly difficult journey we are traveling.
Dwelling in a state of overwhelm or anxiety for too long impacts our ability to cope, diminishes our capacity, and steals our hope. Our bodies and minds can only heal when we are in a state of relaxation. Without actively pursuing self-care, the act of bringing peace into our bodies, we compromise our future ability to cope and have hope.
Self-care gives us the confidence that we can overcome our current circumstances and create a new, better, and more transformative future for ourselves. And it provides us with the hope and motivation to take the next best step.
Neurological Fact:
It is impossible to worry and creatively problem-solve at the same time.
Hope stimulates the problem-solving areas of our brain.
When we focus on our self-care, it shuts down the worry parts of our brains. Worry, anxiety, and stress compromise our immunity and the feeling that our lives have meaning.
Focusing on our self-care relaxes us and can turn on up to 1200 stress-reducing genes and 1000 immune-enhancing genes. It can influence our immune systems to protect us from covid or recover from it more quickly if we contract it. And it can help us process and heal the infidelity trauma.
The fastest self-care activity to relax us, and one covered extensively throughout the course, is our breath. In week one of the self-care course, see it here, we look at Bee Breath. Bee breath uses humming to help activate relaxation through the natural release of nitric oxide in our bodies.
Our amazing bodies know how to heal our stress when we tune into them.
Nitric Oxide is also a powerful anti-virus, anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, and anti-microbial gas. And our amazing bodies make it in our sinuses when we hum, from the nitrates consumed in our diet.
In week 3 of the self-care course, we look at how our food can support us in reducing stress in our minds and bodies. Eating nitrate-rich foods like leafy greens and beets is an essential part of self-care that stimulates relaxation in our bodies. It releases the fantastic ability our body has to heal, fight disease, and release stress.
*(Please don’t confuse nitric oxide with sodium nitrate, a commonly used preservative and color fixative in bacon, cold cuts, and hot dogs. Nitrates from vegetables are harmless, whereas nitrates in processed meats can be troublesome to health, mainly when consumed in excess over long periods.)
Self-care is a journey, the intentional inclusion of habits that help us heal. It gives us a relaxed body and mind so we can recover. A stressed body and mind compromise our immune system. If you are struggling with stress, overwhelm, or want to feel more relaxed, check out the Breathing Techniques in the Self-care Course. The first breathing technique you will learn is called Bee Breathing.
My partner and I use Bee Breathing to avoid covid each time we leave our home now.
We take a moment to Bee Breathe three or fours times both on the trip out and on our return trip home. Knowing it supports our immune system reduces our covid stress. It also gives us greater resilience to cope with those around us who may be spilling their covid stress out onto others.
And most importantly, we get more capacity to interact meaningfully with each other. Meaningful communication gives us hope for a better future.
Learn more about nitric oxide and humming from Dr. Van Dyken on youtube. And check out Bee Breath in our Self-care Course. If you need to talk more or want to comment on this discussion, please leave a comment below, or book a call with me.
Much love, and bee safe!
