Impacts of COVID – 19, aka Coronavirus

COVID – 19, aka Coronavirus, has quickly become a more serious issue in the last three months. According to Worldometer, there are 597,252 cases worldwide as of March 27, 2020. People are becoming more worried and a lot of people are forced to stop working or to work from home.  It is a difficult time for the country. It is a challenging time for us. The pandemic has caused schools, businesses, and entertainment to shut down. Understandably, there is a lot of  fear going onabout COVID – 19/Coronavirus.

BUT, can Coronavirus also be a blessing in disguise? 

Can it be an opportunity that we can use to our advantage? According to 20somethingfinance, we are the most overworked developed nation in the world. We don’t have a good work and family life balance. Many more women have joined the workforce since the 1960s. Cost of living has gone up, which has required most households to have all adults working.  

That means more and more people have less family and free time in their households.  More and more of us don’t really spend time relaxing and taking in the simple pleasures that life has for us. We don’t have time to be humans, fathers, mothers, grandparents, partners, etc. We aren’t giving as much energy and time to invest in taking good care of ourselves and cultivating important, intimate relationships in our lives.

We are overworked and overstressed. We are disconnected from ourselves and from our loved ones.

How Can We Take Advantage of Our Current Situation due to COVID – 19/Coronavirus?

Due to the contagious nature of the coronavirus, we are forced to stay home more.  This might be a great time for us to have a more satisfying life and develop better relationships with family and loved ones.

Individually, we can use this time to reconnect with ourselves and to think about what’s really important to us. What have we lost track of, and how can we get it back? Take some time to breathe until you feel your body relax, and your shoulders drop instead of holding your breath and just trying to keep your head above the water. 

Use this opportunity to read the books that you have bought years ago but never had a chance to read. Play your favorite music again so you can dance, move your body, and remember the good  times when you were silly, fun, and more carefree. Call your friends to catch up and reconnect with them. Facetime or Skype them to make it more intimate. I’ve already done this a few times with my friends and we  have even scheduled some dinner dates over Facetime and Skype. 

As a family, spend more meaningful time together. You could start cooking dinner together because you have more time at home now and don’t need to drive back and forth from work. Play some silly games together or maybe create a new game. Start a new family tradition and enjoy each other’s company. Share appreciation and gratitude for what each of you has brought into the family unit. Do arts and crafts with your children so you guys can have more physical contact and closer interaction, which are crucial for deepening relationships and bonds. 

Laugh with each other to build more fond memories and become a stronger family in the face of this pandemic. Reach out to the elderly people in your family to  talk, check in and build more memories with them. 

For a lot of couples, you might be forced to deal with issues that have been simmering in the relationship but you guys were able to avoid them because you could use work, time restrictions, and tiredness as your excuses. After all these years of working with clients, doing couples therapy, marriage counseling and sex therapy, and being in an intimate relationship myself, I’ve learned personally and professionally that we cannot, no matter how hard we try, avoid the issues that are in the relationship and marriage. The longer we avoid them, the uglier and smellier they would be. 

Conflicts are part of human experience, which means they are inevitable in a relationship. Avoiding conflicts will only backfire for everyone in the relationship, and create more anger and resentment. Therefore, since you and your loved ones are both forced to be home more often and interact with each other more, why don’t you use it as an opportunity to really deal with the issues in the relationship? 

I would suggest that when you and your partner do decide to deal with the issues, carry yourself more calmly and presume positive intentions with each other.. Also, treat your partner more respectfully, and work together more collaboratively. At the end of the day, you have the same goal in mind – to have a better relationship. Isn’t it?

Moreover, spend more time exploring each other’s body, play with each other, catch up with each other, and appreciate each other. Say more loving words, show more loving gestures, and do more loving actions. 

How can COVID – 19/Coronavirus pandemic help us be better individually and relationally?

COVID– 19/Coronavirus is contagious and scary. It is a sad and scary time in our history. It is also a time of opportunity for all of us to reconnect, rekindle, and rejuvenate with ourselves and our loved ones. Life throws challenges at us all the time. We cannot fight with life so let’s embrace it and use it to our advantage. Use it as an opportunity to grow, to expand, and to build more love and connection.

If you need extra tips, or support to navigate your life and/or your relationship, we are here to help.

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