I’m realizing that putting “coronavirus” in the title of this blog might dissuade those of you who are sick of coronavirus issues from reading it, and I’m a little sick of those issues myself. Nevertheless, I’d like to talk a bit about a skill that we could use to help tolerate the distress of this very unusual, unprecedented situation we all face. Given a choice, most of wouldn’t have elected to live without toilet paper, have to completely rearrange and revamp our work practices, spend every hour of the day at home with our kids with no end in sight, try to remain 10 feet away from other human beings, wash our hands compulsively, and so forth. In the space of a few hours this week, we had to come up with a whole Telehealth program at the DBT Centre so we could continue to serve our clients safely. Social distancing is also hard for many of us. For instance, although I’m a little more on the introverted side, I do like being around people (I just don’t always want to have to talk to them), and I really enjoy visiting the public library and coffee shops to read and work. The other night, I walked down to the library after I found out it was closing indefinitely to stock up on books, and it was a weird and sad experience. A few straggling customers were perusing the bookshelves, and when I walked past some of the popular restaurants in town, I saw only a couple of customers here and there. Starbucks was closed, and all of its chairs were stacked up. Buses went up and down the hill with nobody on them. It was like being in some kind of post-apocalyptic ghost town. At the same time, I found what I saw a little heartwarming. It became clear to me that members of our community are taking seriously their responsibility to help prevent the spread of the virus. Although the statistical probability of actually being infected with the virus causing COVID-19 is incredibly low, a concerted effort is needed in our society to prevent the situation from escalating as it has in places like Italy. And people are coming together (or rather, moving apart) to do just that. All of this action requires a lot of willingness.
Willingness is a skill we teach in DBT in the distress tolerance module, as a way to help people tolerate difficult situations and do what’s effective. Willingness involves accepting challenging situations, emotions, thoughts, and so forth, and doing what’s needed, even if you don’t want to. When you notice willfulness (the opposite of willingness) arise, the idea is to observe that you’re feeling willful, accept that you’re feeling this way, consider whether there’s something threatening about the situation (usually willfulness comes up when there’s some kind of perceived threat or negative event), think about what you might do if you were willing, and try your best to do it. I definitely felt willful about having to teach my psychology class online, figure out a system for this, do the necessary legwork, contact everyone, and make it happen. At the same time, it was the most effective thing to do, and I started by acknowledging my feelings of frustration and willfulness, thinking about what was threatening or difficult about the situation (I was already overwhelmed with work and didn’t want more to do, I thought the course wouldn’t run as well on-line, and so on), and turning myself toward the most effective path. Ultimately, I think it went reasonably well, and I tried to maintain a positive attitude about this new way of doing things despite the inconvenience. This coronavirus is presenting us each day with opportunities to practice willingness. We just have to notice them, catch ourselves when we’re being willful, and do what’s needed. ~ Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.