One of the overwhelming aspects of struggling with mental illness such as depression or anxiety is that we do not know when or where another episode will hit. We can be feeling fine one day and then feel depressed and unable to get out of bed the next day. We can be relaxing as we enjoy a meal at a restaurant one moment only to be suddenly hit by a debilitating wave of panic a moment later. The seemingly random and intrusive nature of mental illness can make us feel helpless and unsure of ourselves or what we are capable of doing at any given time.
The pandemic has exacerbated that sense of uncertainty and dread as we face a relentless threat of sickness, death, social isolation and disconnection from our work and the things we love to do. And we are still not fully sure how the pandemic will continue to play out. The ongoing uncertainty and stress is overwhelming for all of us, but is particularly difficult for people who already struggle with the uncertainty of mental illness.
So how does one cope with such uncertainty? I talked with Grammy Award winning musician Shawn Colvin on The Hardcore Humanism Podcast about how she is coping during the pandemic. Colvin has been an outspoken mental health advocate, publicly sharing her struggle with depression and alcoholism throughout her life. And we talked about how difficult the pandemic has been for her, in part because she has lost access to her career and livelihood as a performing musician. And in our conversation, Colvin explains that one of the most important strategies that she has utilized to cope in her life has been a part of her spiritual orientation to the world — humility.
While many businesses were impacted by the pandemic, the music and entertainment industry were particularly hard hit as most performance venues have been closed. Like many performing musicians, Colvin assumed the past year would include her normal schedule of live performances. What she described was not only a loss of her livelihood, but also a loss of her sense of purpose and security. “The loss of being able to … have purpose. You take it for granted. At least I did … loss of our sense of normalcy, safety. It’s a whole new way of life,” Colvin told me.
Over the years, Colvin had developed a regimen of both medication and a behavioral plan that has helped her combat her depression and improve her overall functioning. She describes her treatment regimen as providing a “net” under her. But the loss of her ability to work has resulted in what Colvin describes as mood swings that are often unpredictable. “It takes the form of mood swings, really … It’s all very disconcerting when I was going through these mood swings, and really not having a way to understand them,” Colvin recalled. “It’s been a year since I’ve worked, and it’s maybe another year? Nobody knows. And I just say, ‘How can I go on living this way?’ You know, having to reinvent myself constantly and come up with something to do. And beating myself up for not having the energy.”
In the presence of the seemingly uncontrollable nature of her mood swings and the uncertainty of the pandemic, Colvin felt overwhelmed at times. The natural reaction that we often have when we feel out of control is that we try to assert some type of control in our lives. Perhaps we try to suppress our feelings or try to change the people around us. The problem is that since we don’t have true control over our mood or our environment, our attempts at control perpetuate a sense of helplessness rather than mastery, worsening rather than soothing depression. The pandemic forced Colvin to confront that she had less control than she had hoped. “We take for granted that we carry around this sense of well-being and ability to engage and feel purposeful … If we were able to think I have control over nothing, you know, things would not be pretty,” Colvin said. “But this pandemic … really brought that home to me, I have so little control over so much.”
Recognizing that she does not have control over certain areas of her life is not new for Colvin. In fact, this “acceptance-based” approach to her life has been an ongoing part of her recovery from alcoholism. But underlying that acceptance-based approach to her recovery is what Colvin describes as a broader spiritual orientation to the world – humility. And by being humble and open to not being able to control everything, she is able to see many of these difficult times as an opportunity to learn rather than an opportunity for self-loathing.
“I’m a sober alcoholic … The program that I have embraced, that got me sober … it has a spiritual component … A day at a time overview … to be in the moment as best as I can … And to accept that there is a path. There’s somehow a path. And the more we fight that path or what is going on, the harder it is,” Colvin described. “It teaches you something. There’s always something to learn … I don’t have the arrogance, or try not to have the arrogance to know what’s going to happen to me. There’s a humility. There’s a gift in a certain amount of humility that we don’t know, and, we’re not controlling everything.”
To be sure, Colvin’s approach is not a passive acceptance. She does not simply throw up her hands as she surrenders control. Rather, she focuses on taking action in relation to things that she can control. The combination of the learning-based acceptance and humility and the consequent action creates a powerful orientation to her life and effective coping process. She described how she has used that approach in her parenting.
“There’s a concept for me … take as much action as possible. Take any action you can. And then you have to turn over the results. You can only do so much,” she said. “And this is what I try to tell my daughter when she starts spinning. You know, you can’t do anything about such and such today. You can make that call tomorrow. But today, you can’t make it – so what can you do today? Whatever there is to do — do it. If there’s nothing to do, if you’ve done everything you can, there is for me a Higher Power, call it what you will … destiny, the universe, energy … that I turn over the results to … That’s a big part of what I do to try and stay sane.”
This spiritual and practical approach to her life can be effective, but isn’t necessarily easy for Colvin to always implement. Both before and during the pandemic, one of the most important ways that Colvin supports her own spiritual practice of acceptance and humility is through connection with others who understand and support her approach.
“I also stay in touch … with like-minded people … who follow the tenets of the things that I learned when I was recovering from being an alcoholic … which I still consider that I am … I am familiar with those steps, and I practice them,” Colvin explained. “And I check in with other people who do the same thing, who remind me … Part of the sickness of addiction is terrible denial, and doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. And so, I have to keep in, you know as they say, fit spiritual condition. And I do that by connecting with other people. That to an extent is my higher power. The people that I know, and have bonded with, who are recovering through the same tenets, program that I’m recovering in — there’s a power in that. So, I stay in touch with people who are like-minded.”
And for Colvin, as it is for many of us in the pandemic, that practice of humility is tested on an almost daily basis as we confront the new and at times unpredictable nature of the world. “I have to start over many times, many times,” Colvin said. “I have to regroup and be where I am. And, you know, it’s a new day.”
