People often come to me feeling confused about how they are feeling. They wonder, “Am I anxious? Depressed? A combination of both? Or something else altogether?” To me, this is not surprising.

When you go through trauma, it often feels like someone reached into the cockpit of your life and swapped out the flight manual. One day you’re moving through the world with a bit of ease; the next, you feel as vulnerable as a turtle without its shell.

Let’s be real: when it comes to drugs and alcohol the reason most of us use them is because they’re fun—we like the way they make us feel. We also may enjoy them for their ability to help us “escape” from our daily grind, or from certain problems we are facing or emotions we don’t want to feel—from anxiety to depression to chronic stress.

Whole Wellness Therapy understands that any successful approach to mental health must be holistic to succeed. One of our core techniques is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which works to radically change our relationship with our emotions. What makes ACT successful for treating many mental health conditions, including trauma, is its use of mindfulness. Yoga itself can be a meditative and mindful practice, as the yogic asanas (postures) and focus on breath work not only allow us to get better in touch with our bodies, but provide an excellent starting place for us to better understand our own minds.

During times of crisis, like the one we’re facing with the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of us feel anxiety’s shove. In many ways, it’s surprising that we don't all have anxiety. In fact, how we as humans evolved to respond to threats is what has kept us going for as long as we’ve been alive. When we were early humans, hearing the snap of a twig would evoke a split-second question of whether we should fight or run or freeze. In our modern society, we are asked to answer this same question every day: we face conflict in the workplace or at home; our sense of security is threatened by drops in the stock market or job loss; or by threats to our health and well being. The reality is, we all experience anxiety when such topics arise, and especially when we face an invisible enemy in our community—enter coronavirus.

For some of us, when we first start experimenting with drugs and alcohol a light bulb turns on. It’s like we found the thing we had been looking for our whole lives; the thing that is going to make us feel OK. We think, “Now I have something that can help me deal with almost anything!”