Coronavirus

 Tonight we drove around our small town to grab a treat since it’s Friday and it’s tradition. It was a ghost town you guys! Normally restaurants and businesses are busy on the weekends. Instead there were little to no cars in parking lots, and lots of businesses closed early in order to slow the curve on the Coronavirus. People are staying home. Life is completely different. No more church, home school for kids, and little to no social interaction. Meanwhile the news is literally talking about nothing else except this novel virus. How are you feeling about all of this? Most friends and neighbors I’ve talked to are scared. I’m scared too. I think that’s completely normal. You see, our brains are always on the look out for a problem to solve. And the worst kind of problem for the brain is one that isn’t able to be solved. Which is what we’re all dealing with right now. No one actually knows what the future holds for us. They can predict. But no one really knows. So we go to the news and any other source we can to try to solve this problem. We think that if we just gather enough information we will figure out a way to move on and feel better. The issue here is that all of the news being thrown at us is only causing us to feel more and more negative emotion. But what if instead we all tried to look at today. What if we gave our brain a problem that it actually could solve? Instead of focusing so much on the news and fear, let’s limit our exposure and only listen to the experts, follow what they say, and then move on. I believe things will get better. I don’t know how or when so for now I’m doing my best to focus my brain on problems it can solve. It’s not easy but it feels a lot better than fear.