Mental Health During Social Unrest: How to Stay Woke & Mentally Healthy
Things have been very heavy here recently. Unless you live under a rock (and even then you’d probably still be aware), recent events have caused an upheaval of our emotional wellbeing. The recent killing in Minnesota, the racially charged incident in Central Park, oh yeah, and the pandemic, just to name a few things, have caused a swirl of emotions for most people. Anger, frustration, confusion, exhaustion, sadness, depression, and rage. Even though many of us aren’t personally connected with tragedies and situations we still feel anxious, are having trouble sleeping, and experiencing racing thoughts. The feelings are valid, but over time, they can become overwhelming and difficult to manage. So how do we feel the feelings without being stuck? Let’s talk about how to manage our mental health during difficult times like these and how to be in the know without becoming overwhelmed.
What’s Going On?
Times are troubling. If you know about George Floyd, Christian Cooper, Breanna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery…just to name a few, then you are probably mentally exhausted from knowing, learning, and seeing their tragic stories. If you’re like me, you’ve been consumed with videos, interviews, news articles, social media, and everything in between when it comes to these cases. We try our best to find out as much as we can to help rationalize what is going on and our feelings. After days of consuming media connected with these troubling stories it finally happened. While driving from the grocery story I began to cry. I had finally hit my mental peak and knew it was time to climb down from Mt. Information Overload in order to restore peace within myself. Maybe you’re there too. Maybe you need to do some mental resetting so that you can function properly.
Many of us have been in this position where we have reached our mental capacity, but instead of taking a break, we keep going. This often happens due to guilt. Due to the notion that “if I’m not engaging 100% of the time, it will mean I don’t care.” This is not true. There is nothing wrong with knowing your limits and knowing when you need rest. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. It doesn’t mean you aren’t empathetic. It doesn’t mean you aren’t down for the cause. It just meant you are “woke” enough to know what’s going on in the world AND inside of you.
Listen, empathizing, feeling sad, and caring for what goes on around you is completely fine and healthy. It’s important to be able to relate to others, to feel for others, to be able to connect emotionally with what other’s are going through…but for some people it goes to a heightened level and those individuals are often called “empaths.” An empath is a person who feels and absorbs other people’s emotions and/or physical symptoms because of their high sensitivities. I’m sure some of us have some empath tendencies at times, I know I do, and there isn’t anything WRONG with being an empath. Just like there isn’t anything wrong with being an emotional person, a sensitive person, or an empathetic person. But while there’s nothing wrong with being an empath, it can be tiresome and taxing to constantly be in such a high emotional state. It can be draining to hear about other people’s situation and to find yourself thinking about it all day. And this can be especially exhausting because there is soooo much going on in the world that every second something troublesome is happening. I don’t want you to be an emotional slave to society. It is ok to feel for others and for what is going on, but I want to ensure that these feelings don’t take you down a road of negative thoughts and uncontrollable emotions. So let’s talk about ways to handle all of these emotions.
How To Manage
Acknowledge Your Feelings
The first step is acknowledgement. You cannot cope with what you don’t acknowledge. So before you can work out your emotions you have to recognize and admit that you’re feeling some type of way. You can start by simply acknowledging that you feel sad…that this situation hurt you…that you’re angry…that you feel nervous because of what just happened…whatever your feeling…acknowledge it! Nothing get’s done or accomplished by pretending these feelings aren’t there. So first, acknowledge that you have some feelings about these situations.
Express Yourself
Another thing that you can do to manage your emotions is to express yourself…in a healthy manner of course. Now let me just put it out there…commenting and clapping back, and fussing with people in the comments on Instagram, Facebook, and twitter may not be a healthy way to express yourself. Normally, that makes things worse because you just continue to take on all the anger and aggression and nastiness in the comments. If you want to help yourself, how about don’t even read the comments…that can totally mess up your mood! I want you to talk to your tribe…talk to your therapist…talk to your family…not just about the event, but about your feelings. Too often people just go along talking about things we’ve seen or heard, but you aren’t truly open and honest about how it’s affecting us. There have been times that I’ve watched the news and saw another black male (adult or child) being shot and killed by the police and while I would talk to my family about the situation, I wouldn’t really say much about how it made me feel. I eventually began telling my husband about how these incidents made me anxious, and scared, and nervous for his and the other men in my family’s safety. It’s not enough to just talk about stuff on the news and in the media…you must talk about how this stuff makes you feel. Don’t hold it in. Don’t be afraid to share your feelings because I promise you’re not alone. And if you don’t feel confident that the people in your circle will be understanding, again, talk to a therapist. It’s our job for that hour to only care about you and your emotions. If you’d like to work with me visit www.mclaurinmentalwellness.com to schedule a free consultation. I also recommend that you journal and write about your feelings. So, express yourself…in a healthy way, of course.
Know Your Triggers
So now that you’ve acknowledged your feelings and expressed them, I want you to prepare for the future, because unfortunately, these type of things may continue to happen. It is important that you know your triggers. When you know that something isn’t good for you, it may be best to limit your interaction with it. If the news is triggering, cut back on watching it. If social media is stressful, cut back on scrolling through it. If every time you talk to that friend it’s doom and gloom and that messes up your mojo, limit your conversations. Don’t be a glutton for punishment and continue to place yourself in front of your trigger day in and day out. Go unfollow certain Instagram pages. Stop reading about every tweet that is put out that makes your anxiety high. Take the push notification off your phone. You don’t need to be alerted every time something happens. Assess if you are doing things that contribute to you being triggered more than you have to. Guard your time and put in boundaries for those who drain you. Replace those triggers with things that will improve and calm your mood. Implement some self-care in your life. Spend some time focusing on yourself. One thing that many people who deal with anxiety use to help calm themselves are sitting in nature. Now I’m not sure where you live and how the weather is, but if you can, take a few minutes to sit outside or go for a walk. Take your thoughts off what is going on in your head and put them on what you can see, hear, and feel around you. Doing this is called grounding yourself and I guide some of my clients through this process. Give that a try while managing your emotions and your triggers.
Live!
Lastly, I want you to live your life. Yall, one thing that all these events have taught me is that some things are out of my control. And because of that, you should go hard every day. What I mean is you should smile as much as you can. Laugh as much as you can. Spend time with people who matter and doing things that you love. Life is precious and too short to spend it depressed, anxious, and mad if you can help it. Be intentional with your time and spend it living with no regrets. Don’t live in fear of what may come or what may happen. Don’t let the situations around you stop you from moving forward with your dreams. If anything, let them motivate you to do your best while you can. George Floyd’s death has pushed me to go as high as I can, to get involved in community matters (aside from just voting), and to be the absolute best mom and wife I can to my beautiful brown husband and children. So, go be the best mom to your kids that you can. Be the most supportive spouse you can be. Go on adventures, challenge yourself to think big, and achieve big. Get involved! Take your emotions and let them encourage you to live your life the best way possible.
The emotions that we feel when we see our brothers and sisters going through hard times are natural. If you are one of those people who have heightened sensitivity and you really get sucked in, it’s ok. Just acknowledge your feelings, express your emotions in a healthy manner, know and limit your triggers until you learn how to handle them, and live your life in a way that inspires others to do the same.
LaShawnda McLaurin is a licensed clinical mental health counselor offering counseling and coaching services to women, exclusively online. She specialized in anxiety counseling, anxiety, fear, and worry coaching, trauma, and relationship issues. To learn more about LaShawnda’s services click here.