Staying Sane In A World Gone Mad

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In the last 12 months, I’m fairly certain that most of us have questioned our own sanity a time or two as we try to understand how to navigate the ever-changing regulations and guidance being disseminated not just by Dr. Fauci and the Center for Disease Control, but also from state and local government officials and our well-meaning family and friends. In my opinion, there are many more questions that need to be answered about the nature of COVID-19 and its impact on our future health before we will feel comfortable to live our lives without anxiety and foreboding.  However, when our daily thoughts are consumed with worry and doubts about our personal safety, it is very hard to imagine a less stressful and happier life in the future.

Related: 
STAYING SANE IN A WORLD GONE MAD – Part 1
STAYING SANE IN A WORLD GONE MAD – Part 2

By not taking control of our thoughts and emotions, we are abdicating personal responsibility for our own mental health

Unfortunately, by not taking control of our thoughts and emotions, we are abdicating personal responsibility for our own mental health.  A very basic psychological principle is that we humans base our actions, and our attitude, on how we perceive things to be.  If we perceive that we are in an impossible situation, it is then easy for our minds to just shut down and do nothing to try to change our circumstances.  In other words, we resign ourselves to the situation, whatever that may be.  When we are in resignation mode, we have given up any sense of personal empowerment, and that is not a good place to be mentally, emotionally, or physically.

One of the most amazing things about human beings is that we have the power to make our own choices.  In other words, we have free will.  Even under the worst possible circumstances, we can still choose our attitude, as Dr. Viktor Frankl, an Austrian Jewish psychologist, demonstrated so well in his inspiring book titled Man’s Search for Meaning (1946).   In spite of the harsh living conditions Dr. Frankl endured in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, he was able to see the good and the positive in daily life.  Even while walking out to the field he was assigned to work in, Frankl was able to see beauty in the new day--the warm colors of the rising sun, the flowers in the field, or the snow-covered trees.  He was able to do this because he knew how to choose his attitude.  The other choice he could have made was to feel sorry for himself as he marched along with the other prisoners, but he knew that having a negative attitude would not make his day easier, only harder physically and emotionally. 

A National Science Foundation article published in 2005 claims the average person has 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day and that 80% of those thoughts are negative.   With that much negativity in our mind, it would be very easy to become angry, mean, bitter, depressed, or just plain hopeless about the future.  Fortunately, most of us are more resilient than we think we are, and Viktor Frankl understood that.  He said, "When we are no longer able to change a situation . . . we are challenged to change ourselves."  If you are still feeling angry about having to wear face masks and be "locked down" due to COVID-19 restrictions, I challenge you to change your attitude and decide how you want to live your life from this day forward.  As psychological researchers Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman commented in their 2010 book How God Changes Your Brain, "Only human beings can think themselves into happiness or despair, without any influence from the outside world."

They are anxious, depressed, fearful, and afraid to make any future plans

Most of the clients I’m seeing in my private practice in 2021 have the same complaints.  They are anxious, depressed, fearful, and afraid to make any future plans. They have allowed COVID-19 fears and negative news stories to dominate their life, until they are feeling like prisoners in their own homes and in their own minds.  This is a sure way to lose one’s grip on reality.

Keeping our sanity requires that we face reality, no matter how unpleasant that may be. Perhaps it is easier for committed Christians to face reality because they know that they are not alone.  God has sent the Holy Spirit to live within us to safeguard our hearts and minds and to give us hope and courage for the future. No matter how crazy this world becomes (and it has become even crazier and more frightening since the Biden-Harris administration has come to power), our job as Christian believers is to stand strong in all circumstances.  One way to help keep things in perspective is to pray daily for our country, our national leaders, and others who have the power to preserve our republic and American way of life.  Pray also for courage to stand for truth and justice and religious freedom.  

"For God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."    2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

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