What If You Don’t Want To Go Back To Your Old Life?

In fact, the Berlin-based relationship therapist Andrew G Marshall points out that while it might make us uneasy, uncertainty can be a fruitful and creative starting point. “Anxiety is a perfectly normal emotion - you’re never going to get rid of it. It’s a bit like trying to get rid of the rain.” Rather than trying to push down unease, Marshall argues that we should “accept the feelings and challenge the thoughts - what we tend to do is accept the thoughts and challenge the feelings.” Thoughts can often be false and hysterical, whereas feelings just are.

So, what now? "Accept the fact that you’re anxious - especially if you’re considering something new, but then take a dictation of the thoughts - write them down, what is your anxiety saying will happen? Some of these things, when you see them written on paper, will seem so ridiculous that they’re easy to discount. And others, like ‘if I try to step off the corporate path, I won’t be able to cope’ - you can change into questions: ‘how would I cope?’”

Hellerer argues that we should follow our curiosity. “Your curiosity is the best proxy you have for your purpose. Look around you, what things make you truly curious? What articles, what social posts, what TV shows? Where’s your curiosity most piqued? Indoors or outdoors? If you start to follow these threads of curiosity, without worrying where they might end up, you start to build a picture of what naturally sparks your passion.”

On YouTube, a few days ago I was watching a countdown of the biggest tidal waves in celluloid history; the most unsettling moment is not when the wave hits the land, swallowing buildings with the churning fury of a crocodile's death roll. It is the few minutes before, as the people stare out at the oncoming water. Watching the video your stomach flips - run, you fools, hide! - nauseated partly by the terrible burden of knowing their fates before they do.

Like those people on the shore, when news of the new virus broke, we marvelled at it. Standing in our summertime brights, with plastic buckets in our hands and sandcastles at our feet. Run you fools. It grew bigger on the horizon - hide! - but we stood and watched until it was almost blotting out the sun.

During lockdown we’ve sheltered in our homes as if on high ground, wondering when we’ll be able to go back to the beaches - and what we’ll find when we get there. In a world where the economy has stalled, a third of the workforce is receiving wage subsidies from the government and whole industries struggle to survive, so many of the conceits of the past suddenly seem as sound as straw houses. In this world, the only certainty, the only constant, is change. But perhaps that’s not such a bad thing.

Images | shutterstock