Now that you’ve regressed during the pandemic, what are you going to do about it?

Yesterday, Texas reported zero deaths from COVID-19.

Multiple states are ending their mask mandates.

We are hastening our move out of what has been a long season of enduring a global pandemic.

Now what?

Well, for starters, it’s time to unmask the regressive behaviors you’ve adopted as your way of coping with the pandemic.

Admit it, for many of you, you knew that you weren’t making the best of decisions on how to endure social distancing and all that came with living through a pandemic, but you told yourself, “It’s just for a little while, then I’ll get back to doing what’s better for me.”

More than a year later, you’re deep into those bad decisions!

An assortment of studies tell us some of the regression Americans have experienced from the choices they made during the pandemic include:

• • Becoming spiritual strays. You were once an almost consistent churchgoer, but as church services became mostly limited to online streaming or videos, as many as a third or more of you wandered away from your church. Or any church. What are you going to do now? SUGGESTION: Return! But don’t just return, repent and commit yourself to a serious season of discipleship. If you were willing to wander away from the family of God, and likely most of your fellowship with God Himself, you need to make a priority the refreshing of your relationship with your Creator and spend some time strengthening the basic fundamentals of the Christian faith in your life. Consider this an opportunity for a “season of recalibrating” to a new vitality of faith.
  • Weight gain. According to a study conducted at Harvard University in 2020, about one of every three adults is obese. Another study claims two-thirds of Americans age 20 and over are either overweight or obese. Now factor into that information that one “coping mechanism” people turned to during the pandemic was eating, you can imagine the number of people who are coming out the pandemic having gained weight. What are you going to do now? SUGGESTION: Fundamentally change your relationship with food. There are vast resources available to help you do that, from your primary care physician, to dieticians, nutritionists, and certified Personal Trainers and resources both in persons and online. If you want to change your fundamental relationship you have with food, and need help to do that, it’s out there in volume. What will you do?
  • More or less sleep. With a change in lifestyle over the past year, so many people have devastated their old sleep habits and patterns. It’s not just that pandemic-induced stress, anxiety, and depression have robbed people of sleep (it has), many also report getting much more sleep than they used to. For some, that’s a good thing! But it’s not so good when you’ve made a new habit of just sleeping away your days. It’s time to get up and get back to living fully again! When it comes to your messed up sleep, what will you do? SUGGESTION: If you haven’t gotten help to address the stress, anxiety, and depression that has negatively impacted your sleep needs, it is time to do so. And for those who have just been lazy, it’s time to apply some self-discipline to re-establishing a healthy habit and pattern of sleep that meets your needs for sleep so that you can energetically engage in living life. For some tips regarding sleep, check out my blog post here.
  • Drinking more. The consumption of alcohol increased over the past year as many people chose to try to dull their senses as a means of coping with the pandemic. That wasn’t “coping,” and it certainly wasn’t “thriving,” it was a poor choice to disengage and endure. What are you going to do now? SUGGESTION: Learn to face life head-on and discover how to thrive without reliance on any artificial supports or stimulants.
  • Increased conflict. Some couples and families have thrived during the pandemic! They have used more time available to them to grow closer together. But others have been forced to suddenly face years of neglecting to nurture their marriages and family relationships, and the result has been an increase in conflict. What are you going to do now? SUGGESTION: Commit yourself to working through issues and reconciling hurting and broken relationships. Hopefully, you’ve learned that if you neglect to consistently nurture relationships, you will fail your relationships, and those relationships will fail you.

This is not an exhaustive list of how people have allowed themselves to regress during the pandemic, you may have regressed in other ways. However you have allowed yourself to slide, you no longer have the pandemic to blame for the bad behavioral choices you’ve made over the past year. Remove the masks from the excuses, face the truth about the changes you need to make, then go create a better, brighter “new normal.”

Scotty