When everything changes instantly, you can become completely disoriented. The tools that used to be helpful and be effective, may seem foreign and insignificant. Your defenses become heightened and you can feel on edge about small things and minor decisions. 

You may not even realize just how stressed you are because you’ve moved beyond what was previously normal into survival mode.

This type of stress can wreak havoc on your immune system, mental health, relationships and energy. And you may soon find yourself sick, tired, arguing for seemingly no reason and  unable to enjoy the things that are still going well in your life.

Trauma makes changes that you weren’t able to choose. It flips things around, rearranges the pieces and can even strip away what you weren’t ready to lose.

In the midst of the chaos, it’s important to breathe, to connect with the source of your life and energy and slow the resulting stress caused by the trauma.

This may seem counterintuitive, unrealistic and extremely difficult to implement, but it will help. 

The stress of a traumatic event can trigger illnesses like a common cold, or a full blown autoimmune disease, as your body attempts to fight off the atypical amounts of stress hormones your body is releasing.

If you are feeling disoriented by the pandemic, or any other traumatic life event, it’s important that you get help as soon as possible. This is a gift that you get to choose to give yourself, and it will initiate your healing even in the midst of the trauma.

Healing makes space for changes that you do get to choose. Healing helps you retain your power and dictate the direction that you want your life to go in.

So if you’re feeling stressed out by this traumatic event, get help immediately. This is the most effective way to address stress during traumatic transitions. Doing do will initiate your healing and stop the stress from creating more harm than it already has.

Getting help may look like calling your therapist. Getting help may look like setting new boundaries for the people in your life. Getting help may mean that you reach out to a friend and be extremely vulnerable about what you’re going through, Getting help may also mean continuing, or doing even more of your healthy lifestyle practices – more fruits and vegetables, more exercise, more rest.

Just know that sometimes, getting help looks like none of these things and other times, it will look like doing all of these things. Don’t waste time trying to figure out if there is a right way or a best way, simply start somewhere and begin getting some form of help.

If you’re not feeling stressed, have compassion for those who are. Even the smallest gestures could mean and help so much during a stressful time.

Remember that we all have different circumstances, but we’re all in this together.

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Tell me in the comments how this traumatic transition is impacting you right now.