Self-Care for the Highly Sensitive Person During Corona

As I write this post, this world is faced with a global pandemic. When I wrote my last post at the end of 2019, I hardly imagined that my next post would start with this line. But here we are. It’s an unsettling and unprecedented time that forces many of us into a life that feels much slower, but also more isolated and uncertain. Things and activities that we perceived as completely normal and often took for granted, such as talking to colleagues at work, meeting up with friends, going to a restaurant, watching a film in the cinema, visiting family or even hugging loved ones, suddenly seem like an expensive luxury item we can no longer afford.

I don’t think you need to be highly sensitive in temperament to be responding to this global crisis with concern and worry for your loved ones and others and the occasional spike of anxiety and despair. I suspect that most of us feel deeply worried at times and can’t help but feel moved by the pictures on television of doctors and nurses fighting for patients’ lives, people losing their jobs, the dead being buried without their loved ones being able to attend their funerals. It is true that research has shown that people who are more sensitive to their environment than others also show a higher capacity for empathy. But how could you not feel moved to tears by all the human suffering that is currently happing around us and to us?

As Berlin has slowly been emerging from its lockdown since March, I was asked by some of my highly sensitive clients how they could look after themselves in the best possible way during this pandemic, which is why this blog entry will focus on the question of self-care. Whether you self-identify as highly sensitive or not, I think this crisis calls for all of us to be able to get in touch with ourselves and find ways to look after ourselves and “to parent” ourselves in the best possible way in order to protect our mental health and well-being.

When life changed significantly at a time that already feels like a long, long time ago, I noticed that the internet and social media in particular responded quickly with a lot of “advice giving” in relation to mental and personal health—do this, don’t do this, here is a video of me talking to the camera to dish out some pearls of wisdom, celebrities with guaranteed incomes telling us to stay home from the comfort of their palatial homes.

Personally, I have felt slightly conflicted about all of this. On the one hand, I thought that this sharing and outpouring of ideas, strategies, and thoughts about how to handle it all surely couldn’t do any harm and might even help some people who feel very lonely, isolated, or anxious. On the other hand, I sometimes wondered what the real motivation was behind all this advice, all this talking, all this noise in exactly the moment when the world went quiet.

My own response to this pandemic has been the opposite: I’ve wanted to go inwards, instead of outwards. I’ve thought a lot, read a lot, and overall have slowed down a lot. I’ve tried to observe what was actually going on inside me. What am I feeling, what am I thinking? What is emerging for me during this time and can I observe it first, without responding straight away?

While some of the advice being given online has been useful, we will only be in a position to take that advice on board if we get in touch with our own feelings and emotional needs during this time, so that we are in a position to recognize which pieces of advice are helpful for us and which aren’t. In other words, I want to encourage you to trust your own wisdom and to get in touch with what is actually going on for you during this time. Ask yourself again and again: What do I need right now? I believe you will find your answer.

Ask yourself what feels good and nourishing in this moment and what doesn’t? Can we be gentle with ourselves and avoid trying to see this crisis as just another opportunity for self-improvement? Maybe this lockdown isn’t the time to learn another language, to write this book you always had in you, to get fit, or to tidy every corner of the house. It could be exactly the right time to do any of these things, but it doesn’t have to be. Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling and be thinking whatever it is that comes up in your mind. Just try to observe it, to be with your actual internal experience, and to respond with self-compassion and kindness as much as possible.

These are strange times. Don’t expect too much from yourself. Don’t expect to be able to function normally—these aren’t normal times. Whatever you need to get through this time, whatever works for you is OK because it works for you. It might not work for the next person, but that’s OK too.

Here are a few of the things have worked for me over the last two months:

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• Regular exercise that’s not based on achieving any fitness goals, like walking in nature
• Mindfulness and meditation
• Reading books (and sometimes poetry when I felt I couldn’t concentrate well enough to read anything longer)
• Speaking regularly to friends and family members on the phone or online
• Eating well and trying to get enough sleep
• Writing in my journal
• Giving in to slowing down
• Trying to be as aware and accepting of my own thoughts and feelings as possible
• Restricting my news intake to watching the evening news just once a day
• Catching up with some films I’ve wanted to watch for a long time

You might find this list helpful or you might not, but most importantly try to stay with what is going on for you and find out what it is that you really need during this time. You’ve got this!

Tom Falkenstein is a psychotherapist and author based in Berlin. His book The Highly Sensitive Man is out now.