Learning to Live in the Moment During Unpredictable Times

Before COVID, we lived with the illusion of certainty. Now the only thing we know for sure is that we don’t have certainty. We must live in the moment now more than ever.  

What are we to do in the face of the shifting landscape of this pandemic? People are more hesitant now than they were when the situation was black and white and they had no choice but to stay home and avoid what we all saw was the clear enemy — a deadly illness with no cure or prevention.  Things are not quite as clear now. Vaccines mostly protect us from severe disease and some of us feel safe now. Others still feel uneasy about jumping back into a pre-pandemic lifestyle.

We have to continually ask ourselves how do we want to live right now, with all the risks, limits, and new freedoms? That is the question we are all wrestling with in this unpredictable moment.  How can we accept and embrace the idea that what we choose now may need an adjustment tomorrow? Can we go with the flow? Make our decisions with the current? Resist the urge to force certainty where none can exist?

In my own professional life, I see that many therapists are not quite ready to return to the office to practice therapy in person, indoors. As people depart from their pandemic cocoons, there can be a return of old separation anxieties and vigilance around illness. However, we may need to ready ourselves to return, especially for those patients who really need in-person contact. We may need to be more flexible around our expectations for practicing therapy. We might have trouble adapting to wearing a mask during a patient session but maybe we can adapt to asking for proof of vaccination. Or not.

On the other hand, some patients don’t want to depart from virtual therapy. There is no single correct answer. We must check in with our evolving values, our thoughts, feelings, and needs. This is an opportunity to reassess and figure out how we want to live. The answer will present itself. Having weathered the radical shift to all virtual therapy, we must remind ourselves that we have built the muscle to cope with this new adjustment.

Many people face decisions about location. To work remotely or not? To go in person to school? We may have friends who want to gather indoors before we are ready. New norms are developing as I write this.

Scientists say that infection rates will go way down and ultimately will be brought under control, similar to the occasional measles outbreaks. They also say that we are unlikely to reach herd immunity for another two generations. We will have significant improvement, but not the total release we had hoped for with the vaccines. We can still live full and meaningful lives in this new landscape if we adapt rather than resist. 

Adaptation is the key to success, as we learned from Darwin. We have to adjust to new lenses and see that we will have ongoing opportunities to make change in our lives, even to reinvent ourselves.

We must embrace the reality of this new unknown. Reality is our friend because it guides us towards what is needed rather than towards an illusion. Here are some ways to feel more comfortable with the current uncertainty and learn how to live more in the moment:

The pandemic has driven home to me that our lives are not a dress rehearsal for a show happening tomorrow. At the same time, the enormous changes we have learned to live with over the past many months have been an important rehearsal for the adaptability we need to cultivate as the future unfolds.

I have permission to practice therapy differently. You have permission to find your new way of working and being able to readjust as necessary. The pandemic gave us an opportunity to make change. That’s what learning is.