Paying attention, mental health in the face of COVID-19, and beyond

“What matters is that we faithfully and diligently attend to our feelings, like we would attend to a small child” 

~Linda Hamann, Master’s level licensed psychologist

I reached out to Linda Hamann a few weeks back when it became clear to me that addressing a discussion around mental health was out of my reach. Linda graciously volunteered to support my clinic and my clients by sharing the following thoughts and experiences. Her kindness in time and energy means a great deal to me, and I think it will provide some necessary insight and resonance for many of you.  ~Robert Angotti, Lic. Ac., Herbalist

“Coronavirus (Covid-19) is one of a multitude of experiences we will live out as human beings.”

This information I am about to present comes from 29 years of experience in the mental health field as a master’s level licensed psychology.  My practice of psychology is infused with an ongoing spiritual understanding of the human being as an integration of body, mind and spirit, the underpinning of which come from my upbringing and education in the Christian tradition.  

These remarks are both general and specific to the times in which we live and our ongoing life as a human being on planet earth.  Coronavirus (Covid-19) is one of a multitude of experiences we will live out as human beings.  It is no different than any other experience that we have had and ought to treat this time like all other times.  No doubt we will continue to have experiences until the day we leave this human suit and pass to spirit from whence we have come.  In the meantime, it behooves us all to attend to our experiences with openness and curiosity rather than find any means possible to ignore and deny them pushing them away as if they are evil knocking at our door and dogging us at our every move. 

Every experience we have will have feelings and emotions attached to them.  This time of Covid-19 is no different.  Attached to the experience of Covid-19 is fear, uncertainty, loneliness, frustration, overwhelm, grief, sorrow, sadness, terror, horror, vulnerability and you name it. You may have experienced these feelings for the first time, or they are triggering past experiences that have not been properly processed.  Perhaps this time will be different, and then again maybe not. That will depend on how you process what is coming your way this time and, in the times, to come. 

“We have a choice in how we process our experiences.”

We have a choice in how we process our experiences.  We can open our hearts to those parts of our body that feel discomfort, pain and emotion.  Or we can put up our defenses pushing all that away hoping against all hope that it will go away and not require anything of us, returning us once again to a state of bliss and comfort.  If we are honest, we know the latter does not work, has never worked and will not work in the future to return us to a state of bliss and comfort.  Yet continue to run from these uncomfortable emotions and feelings in our body. Sometimes we get angry at ourselves or one another and perpetrate violence on our own bodies or the bodies of others through abuse, assaults, murder and suicide.  There is no doubt in my mind that we all are working very hard to feel good and all our behavior is in service to just that, feeling good. 

Through my experience of understanding and working with trauma these past 29 years I have come to understand the importance of body feelings and emotions. My spiritual practice and understanding have also brought me to the same place. I trust the highest levels of consciousness in these matters and I invoke my highest level of consciousness.  About 14-15 years ago I have a spiritual experience that changed my thinking about feelings and emotions.  My irreverent statement to The Universe, God, The Divine, Source, Higher Power that day was “How in Hell do you do this work?”  The answer in clear and sharp audio was about breathe and the visual was about feelings and emotions.  I had a few minutes before my next client, and I needed no time to think about what just happened.  I knew exactly what I needed to do to help my client in the “hell” of trauma.  That was the day my practice changed, and so did my client’s experiences, both new and triggered from the far and near past.

What I have learned by my own personal practice and from my client/teachers is what I would like to share with you in this article.  Put on your seat belts for I am going to take you on a wild ride into your body feelings and emotions to the other side of enduring peace and comfort and perhaps the bliss that you are so wanting in your life on planet earth.  My experience is ongoing, as yours will be.  After-all, life continues as does our experiences. I can tell that this practice has brought me less and less triggered experience from my past and a greater sense of wellbeing. 

“This is a process of acknowledgment without judgment.”

Here goes! The first thing you need to know are your emotions and the attendant body feelings connected to them were created in your body, mind, and spirit/ego by you.  No one can create those emotions and feelings in you. I know we like to blame others and our experiences for how we feel.  “If this didn’t happen, I wouldn’t feel this way”.  Yes, that is true, but it is not the others fault or your experiences fault.  It is time to take responsibility for your feelings and your emotions.   That is the first step, “I am feeling ‘X’ and it is in my chest, my lower abdomen, my solar plexus, my throat, my eyes and ears, wherever”.  From Candace Pert, I came to understand that my emotions are as chemical as the insulin and other peptides in my body. That is why we can feel them as we do in our bodies.  Our emotions appear to get trapped in various places in our bodies.  From my perspective, these emotions got trapped because I had an experience and my head got involved and gave it meaning.  Most of the time, the meaning is not all that helpful.  Now the experience is connected to a not so helpful meaning, like “She/he doesn’t love me”, “so and so is rejecting me”, “ I am inherently flawed”, “I am not enough of something” and so on. Fill in the blank.  We all have done this and are doing it.  Please do not judge yourself for behaving this way.  That will not be helpful and will slow things up.  This is a process of acknowledgment without judgment.  Pure observation. 

It does not matter how the feelings and emotions came to reside in our body.  We do not need to spend much time in solving that mystery.  It will slow us up as well.  What matters is that we faithfully and diligently attend to our feelings, like we would attend to a small child in our presence who was scared and afraid.  Most of us want to attend to children in this emotional state.  This is where it gets wild because that is the last thing any of us want to do. It is very counter intuitive to walk into a fire storm! Ok, not all feelings are a fire storm but certainly some of them feel that way.  They feel like they are going to consume us, and we will be destroyed.  That is just what our ego, that part of us that does not want to change, wants us to think.  At this point, we muster our courage and feel while we gently breath and relax being soft and tender with ourselves and our bodies. Now I don’t know how long it will take for us to settle feelings/emotions down in our bodies, but I do know that if I am not judgmental,  I am soft and tender with that part of me that feels icky, that part of me will begin to relax and calm down. If I do that every time I feel and have an emotional response to something, I have a better chance of that experience not getting stuck in me and get triggered repeatedly. 

“So, to all of you that regularly avoid your feelings it is matter of life and death that we feel.”

A caveat is in order here.  Some experiences in our lives have been so intense that we have employed dissociation to move away from our bodies to a safer more comfortable place and our spirit got fragmented and separated from our bodies in the process.  Those fragmented and separated parts want to come back to a place that is safe and supportive.  It is truly a fire storm for these parts of us to come back to place that is not equipped to feel and process emotions.  If that is the case for you, I urge you to find a mental health therapist who can sit with you as you sit with your emotions and feelings, coaching you through these feelings and emotions to a more associated experience of life.   

Another caveat is in order.  We as a culture have not taken our feelings and emotions seriously.  We believe they are worthless and if we have them, we are weak as a human.  Our entire world appears to be in the same boat.  We keep strutting our guns and military equipment in a posture of strength when underneath all of that are people desperately managing damaged and traumatized lives.  We are afraid to feel.  I regularly say to my clients that their feelings are not going to kill them, but rather what they are doing to avoid feeling that will lead to all manner of physical and mental disorders.  So, to all of you that regularly avoid your feelings it is matter of life and death that we feel. If you struggle with your feelings and your emotions, I urge you to find someone who can help you attend to your feelings as gently and tenderly as you would a small child who is scared and afraid.

Just a handful of years ago, I was introduced to Matt Kahn, a spiritual teacher in our culture.  Finally, I found someone who supported my understanding of feelings and their significance in our lives. Matt would say that our spiritual growth and development hinges on our willingness to feel our emotions and not be sidetracked by an ego that does not want to change and feel, but perpetuate the notion that others and our experience are to blame.  Ego would say that if we just got rid of those people and experiences that cause of pain and suffering, we would be fine.  Spirit yearns for us to take our experiences seriously, attend to them and know more peace and compassion as a result.

“But do not stop with just Covid-19. Feel all your feelings.”

We are amid an experience that is called Covid-19. It is a worldwide experience.  No one is exempt.  Everyone is affected. Everyone. Spiritually, it looks like something profound is happening and I believe it to be true. We can help the planet and each other by what we do with our feelings. If you have them because you are afraid and overwhelmed, feel them.  If they come out of the blue and you do not know why you are sad and feel depressed, feel the experience. By doing so, you and I are helping each other move through this experience at the right level and place.  But do not stop with just Covid-19. Feel all your feelings.  Take the time.  Stop doing what you have been doing with them and experience what is on the other side.  You will be amazed and surprised, but more than that come to know a peace that passes all understanding.  

Linda Hamann is a master’s level licensed psychologist practicing in Moorhead, Minnesota as Red River Counseling, PLLC.  She holds a BS from South Dakota State University Brookings, SD in Nutrition Food Science/Dietetics, a MDiv from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa and a MS in clinical counseling from North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota.  She has held positions as a parish pastor in American Lutheran Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, assistant to the Bishop in Western North Dakota, counselor and psychologist for Lutheran Social Service of MN and practiced as a consulting dietitian in Grand Forks North Dakota.