Practical Tips & Tricks for Balancing Your Mind (+ soul) During A Pandemic

If you’re anything like me, life balance is a hard thing to find even on the most “normal” of days. Throw in a pandemic that isolates you, and your family, from friends, your support system, a faith community, and recreation; and balance becomes an obsolete ideal of days gone by. In today’s blog post, I’ve been asked to share with you some tips for strengthening your mental health and some practical ideas of what to do when you feel overwhelmed.

I spend much of my time in counseling sessions these days, helping clients get in touch with what their souls need. Even the most secular psychology supports that we are triune beings; mind, soul, and body. We know our bodies need exercise, nutrition, and rest. We know our minds need to be engaged with learning, laughing, loving, and logic. But we don’t often know how to hear our souls or if we should trust it. 

Your soul is looking for something… it is looking for peace and rest.

David, the song writing king, spoke to his soul, “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (Ps 43:5)” I don’t think David asked the question in the first half of the verse then moved directly to telling it what to do. I think he legitimately asked the question and waited for a response. Once his soul felt heard, only then would he be able to genuinely move to a place of praise and trust.

Your soul just might want things that don’t seem good for you; a cheeseburger, a Netflix binge, to sleep in, or to check out. But why? Your soul is looking for something and I venture to say it is looking for peace and rest. Giving your soul what it wants might offer short term reprieve, but it’s not lasting or fulfilling. Don’t feel bad for letting your soul have these things, in fact, when it doesn’t get what it wants, it has a way of making it happen anyway and in the least desirable ways (for instance getting sick or lashing out at your family, forcing further isolation and down time).

For your own mental health, though, don’t just stop there. The only way to quiet our soul is to build our spirit-man muscles through spiritual disciplines like fasting, praying, memorizing scripture, serving others, and being still. Unlike a Netflix binge session, you walk away feeling refreshed and renewed; and most interestingly, your soul will be quieted too. 

We sometimes need help untangling future fears, current circumstances, and past hurts.

If you don’t feel like you’re good at spiritual weightlifting, find someone who is. Give them a call and ask them the nitty-gritty details of how they got such big spirit-man muscles. Ask them to help you create a plan and some accountability. Conveniently enough, you can still do this while maintaining social-distancing guidelines!

Let’s be honest though, sometimes spiritual weightlifting doesn’t quite cut it. We can have the best quiet times only to immediately snap back into anger, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness, which leads to more guilt, and shame and drives us further from the Father. This is a good clue that you should seek professional help. We’re not living in the same society as our grandparents who could just pull themselves up by their boot straps and power on.

As a society, we’ve moved to a more complicated consciousness. We sometimes need help untangling future fears, current circumstances, and past hurts. Psychology Today’s website has a great counselor finder tool (complete with filters to help you narrow down your search). Word of mouth is best. Who do your friends go to for counseling? In the last two months, the counseling field has made incredible strides in telehealth, so now geography is no longer an obstacle!

Let me leave you with some practical tips and tricks for balancing your mind (and soul) when you’re feeling overwhelmed.

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Practical Tips + Tricks for
Balancing Your Mind (and soul)

1. Fill in the blanks: I feel __________ when _____________ happens, because _____________. My most selfish thoughts of how this would be better is ______________. A solution that would make this situation good for me and all those involved would be ___________.

2. Assess your 5 senses: What do you taste? Touch? See? Hear? Smell? Go into as much detail for each sense as you can until you feel your body calm.

3. LAUGH!!! Your brain doesn’t know if your laughter is real or not, so it makes serotonin anyway!

4. Take your vitamins! Your brain feeds on B and D vitamins. If it doesn’t have enough of these vitamins, it looks a whole lot like depression. Get over the counter Super B Complex and get plenty of sunshine (or Vitamin D in a bottle).

5. Create something: Creating, crafting, painting, making music, building, puzzling, etc., gives your brain a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment. Having a finished project, and the process to get there, is very satisfying.

6. Get outside: The Bible says that if we don’t praise Him, even the rocks will cry out. Get outside and see if nature seems to be reflecting His glory and singing His praises. Additionally, moving our bodies promotes all kinds of wonderful brain chemistry!

7. Remember:
a. Remember the happier times – look through old pictures or call a relative/friend to talk about old times.

b. Remember the hard times – make a list of all the hard things you’ve had to do and remember that you got through that, you’ll make it through this. If past experience is any indicator here, you’ll be stronger because of it!

~ Anne Beem MS, PC, NCC

Related Article: Breathe Mama… It’s OK To Take Care of You, Too

Photo by Allie on Unsplash