You on Purpose by Dr. Stephanie Shackelford

Author:Dr. Stephanie Shackelford
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living;Vocation—Christianity;REL012140;REL012070;REL012120
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2021-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

A Global Pandemic That Has Upended Life as We Know It

Around the second week of March 2020, most of us who have jobs or attend school were ordered to pack up our computers and sent home. We thought these stay-at-home orders were just going to last for a couple of weeks, maybe a month at worst. People were enjoying a little more time at home. We tried baking bread. We learned how to operate Zoom and enjoyed the fact that when working from home, dress shoes (and even pants) were optional. But the fun wore off quickly when we realized that this pandemic wasn’t going away anytime soon.

As this book releases, the nation is just beginning to emerge from quarantine, with the worst of the pandemic behind us. But it’s been hard. Many students spent more than a year taking classes online, without sports, dances, or any other gatherings (all the fun parts of school!). More than forty million people lost their jobs due to the pandemic. This thing is not only taking our lives, it’s taking our ability to make a living. Sometimes it’s hard to know which is more stressful. The global economy is in a tailspin. In June 2020, experts agreed that we were “officially” in a recession, and some claim we are headed for a depression.

The reality of the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly shaped our current times, and the impact will be felt for years to come. It’s a time of fear and insecurity, of cultural chaos with politicians exacerbating the situation for their gain with elections looming. People at all stages of their careers—from recent college graduates to those nearing retirement—are navigating a complicated and decimated job market. Many are hopeless and disappointed. So how can we respond and move forward in this cultural moment? We spoke to renowned psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud to get his ideas and practical suggestions.

Dr. Henry Cloud:

What you need to realize in a crisis like this is that your brain makes maps of how to do life. For example, if you’re hungry, your brain has a map of how to get out of your chair, walk to the fridge, and get a sandwich. If you’re going to the fridge and somebody stuck a couch out in front of your path, all of a sudden your brain registers that as an error. When that happens, your whole system amps up. Emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, and physically, you’re thrown off. But then you quickly look and realize, Oh, there’s a couch in my way. I’ll walk around. You solve the error and it goes back to normal.

Right now we are living in an error. In a crisis like this, your entire life is registering on your brain as being in an error. We’re all in a state of being amped up. One of the things we know from research is that in that state, your IQ goes down about thirty points, which means our decisions, planning, and emotional regulation aren’t as good. What you have to do in a crisis is to reset.

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