 Good afternoon. Today is January 6th, Thursday and it's a new day and another coronavirus day. My name is Ken Burtness and I'm talking to you from the North Shore. And my name is Deanna Honaker. I'm talking to you from IA today and Ken and I are going to be discussing mental health in regard to the coronavirus. Absolutely. Last year I celebrated my 50th year living and working in Hawaii. It's been a great, great time here. But the last two years have been coronavirus years and it's been a game changer for all of us. It has turned the world upside down. And Deanna and I are here to talk a little bit about that. I don't know about you, but I've never seen what's happened in the last two years. It's been the biggest change in certainly my lifetime. How about you, Deanna? Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's one of the things I wanted to talk about today was, you know, I'm a licensed marriage and family practice therapist here on the island of Oahu. And, you know, my practice looks really different today than it did two years ago. You know, before the pandemic, I saw my clients in person. I still work with individuals, but I used to work a lot more with couples and families because we could be in that room together. And yeah, everyone's had problems in the past before the pandemic, but the pandemic's really intensified a lot of people's problems. And yeah, it's made their problems worse. So that's before we get into that therapy side, Ken, you know, we just want to make sure we have our little caveat too. Yes. And the caveat is what we call a disclaimer. We'll be talking a lot about what you can do, what we all can do during the pandemic in dealing with life that's changed so drastically. This is not a therapy show. We are not supplying therapy. We are discussing things and trying to come to some sort of understanding of what's going on and what's going on is changing all the time. Now, we're all together in on this. We're all facing major, major problems, but each of our problems are unique. And for therapy to work, therapist or the counselor has to work with the individual and their particular problems during this really stressful time that we're going through. So take this, not, well, let me put it this way. If this is making you in any way dysfunctional, having major problems at work, major problems with family, things have changed drastically, you're feeling different as a person. You are not feeling like the same person you were before the pandemic. So much so that it has gotten in the way of your life and the quality of your life. That's when you need to go to a counselor or a therapist because they can treat your individual problems. Deanna and I will be talking about the overall effect of the pandemic. And most of all, it's changing nature, which it is doing continually. Absolutely. And when Ken and I, we started thinking about which direction we wanted to go in our conversation today, the first thing that came up for me for all of us, whether we're in therapy or not, is this emotion of fear. That's a very, very strong emotion and it can impact every moment of your life. And that's today what I wanted to talk a little bit about is these feelings of fear and how they intensify our life experience. A lot of times, unfortunately, towards the negative. And what could we do? I'll jump in with a little bright spot as I was sitting here this morning thinking about what I could share with you. I was thinking about, we're coming on basically the two-year anniversary of the pandemic. We're going to hit this two-year mark of the pre-pandemic life and the post-pandemic life. And life is really different than even the beginning of the pandemic where we didn't understand it, even the scientists didn't understand it. We didn't know how vulnerable we were. And I was thinking about simple things like going to the grocery store and that was a fearful experience for me in the beginning because I didn't know whether me going into a store and touching something that someone else had touched before me, was this a lethal activity that I was doing? And so we do know a little bit more now that we do have some ways to protect ourselves. So, yeah, the fear is still there. But we need to take a moment too and think about we've come a long way. Absolutely. And I think one of the major things about fear is the fear of uncertainty. I mean, we've been up and down this ladder so many times. It is so difficult to grasp that. I was looking at the figures from yesterday. Yesterday we had around over 2,500 new cases. And that looks promising and that our weekly average up until that time was around 2,700. But today, I tuned in today at 9 a.m. today, K-H-O-N is reporting over 4,500 new cases. So just as we started to breathe a little bit easier yesterday, all of a sudden, we're back and it's looking horrific. Now, of course, there's a bright side to that and that's one of the things that Deanna and I want to talk about is there's always a but in this. Well, we're doing bad but or we're doing good, but it's never an easy picture to look at. It's never a black and white picture. It's always well this but that and then there's this. Now with the coronavirus thing, our cases are going up like crazy. Our hospital admissions are not going up as fast and our deaths are not going up as fast. So what do we focus on? What do we look at? Well, one of the things the experts are telling us is that Omicron is sweeping the country and causing surges in every place but it doesn't seem to be as dangerous as the other variants like Delta. Well, we're so early in the case we don't have enough data to substantiate all that. So this fear of the uncertainty, this fear of well, things are okay today but what about tomorrow? And if we sit there focusing on tomorrow and not enjoying today or dealing with life today, we're in trouble. I don't know. Are you seeing something like that with your clients, Deanna? Absolutely. This focusing on the future, right? So as you're saying these things, Ken, the first thing I thought about was one of the techniques that I use with clients sometimes is taking, you know, kind of going on a news diet. So, you know, going on a diet doesn't mean you don't look at any news at all anymore, but maybe kind of pace yourself with it. And one of the yardsticks or the measuring tools that, you know, that we use sometimes is if like, let's use that statistic that you had about how many cases we have daily. If that number isn't really going to change your behavior, if you're not going to do something different tomorrow, whether it goes up or down, you might consider not looking at that number and giving yourself a day off and just saying, you know what, I'm going to focus on the good things that are going to happen tomorrow, how I take care of myself. So yeah, the amount of information that we take in and what our sources are, I mean, how often we look at them, you know, if you look and see that the coronavirus numbers in Hawaii, you know, they're up, you know, to 3,000 a day and you're looking at it two or three times a day, that really reinforces about how scary that is. It's only happened once, right, when the number only comes out once a day. So really kind of monitor ourselves and are we frightening ourselves and your very good point, Ken, about we're losing our today, right, our peace of mind or enjoyment with our family or some of the good things that are happening today, worrying about what that means tomorrow. Absolutely. You know, and one of the big things that's driving this is our social isolation, the disconnect with so many different people, which really reduces our ability to not only be with people, but to get help from people or to give help to people. And that's been very, very difficult. We see even not only the problems with the coronavirus causing physical and mental problems, but it's also affecting our other problems and that we're less able to focus on those problems. And there's the fear of, which was really apparent at the beginning, of going to the hospital. If you go to the hospital and you catch it at the hospital, you know, so hospital visits were down. And hospital populations were up because of so many people in there with COVID. It's not only scary that there's an unknown, but where is the help? That is unknown also. Where is the comfort? That is also problematic now. It's been especially difficult for people with loved ones who are isolated in the hospital or in care homes, not being able to see them, not being able to give them hope or comfort. And that's been a big fear. What happens if they leave us before we're able to get there and tell them how much we love them? This weighs heavily on a lot of people. I will say I have seen just, you know, talking about that fear. I do have clients who have loved ones either in some type of home care facility. And those places, it's very, very strict. There are people that didn't see their loved ones for over a year. And I was really pleased to see staffs embrace technology because a lot of times it's our elderly population. And they may not know how to use an iPad, but I really saw the staff ramp up the clients or the patients' exposure to that and help them out and to be able to see the faces of our loved ones. Thank goodness that we are in the state of technology that we do have. Look at us right now on Zoom. There are ways to mitigate it. One of the things that, as you were speaking, Ken, I was thinking about, you know, we do have Zoom, we've got the phone, we've got FaceTime, things like that. But again, putting parameters on some of that, if we're constantly talking to people we love and care about, but all we're talking about is the pandemic, right? We're losing all those other aspects of our life, and we can kind of reinforce that fear as opposed to alleviating it. So I do know that, you know, I've had conversations with friends where it's like, hey, let's not talk about the pandemic. You know, let's just take a little break. Like, what else is going on? And you're right. Like, sometimes it's not always fun stuff. You know, it's there's other problems that, you know, would have been around anyway, you know, whether the pandemic was here or not. And let's make sure that, you know, we're having rich whole lives and not just being hyper focused on the pandemic. Absolutely. And one of the big fears that's associated with that is that the feeling that we're not in control of our life, that not only we can't see our loved ones, but we can't do what we used to do. We can't be at places we used to be. We can't travel. We're isolated in so many ways. And what we do next seems to be out of the control. It seems to be like there's this wild animal loose. I'm reminded of the movie, the Korean movie, The Host, from a number of years ago where there was a monster let loose. And the really scary thing about that monster going loose was the fact that he was chasing all these people and you never knew who he was going to get. You know, you could be right by him and he could ignore you and take somebody else or he could come after you. And then he would disappear. And you wouldn't see him for a while. And you'd start thinking, well, he's not here anymore. And then he pops up and he's wrecking havoc every place. That's the really scary part of thinking, you know, because we're used to being in control of our life. We're used to saying what we're going to do. We're used to doing that once we've said it. We can make our own agendas in life. And now it doesn't seem like we're able to do that, especially with changes in, are we isolated? Are we locked down? You know, what can we do? What can't we do? Where can we go? What can't we do? Sports is a good example. You know, is it going to happen here in Hawaii? All of a sudden we're in the holiday, the Hawaii bowl, excuse me. And then the day before it's canceled. How can we predict, you know, and that's a big fear, the loss of control. And yet in many ways, that's the wrong fear because no matter what's going on in the external world, we still have control of ourselves. We still can make choices for ourselves. But sometimes that can be very difficult in understanding that we do have that ability and we lose perspective on that. I'm guessing that some of your clients see that as well. Oh, absolutely. And it almost sounds like a bizarre reframe, but to take that fear and see it as an opportunity for creativity and flexibility and developing these other aspects of ourselves. So I have started to hear language change changing. And, you know, oh yeah, I've got this birthday party I'm going to go to. But if the numbers go back up and they restrict it, we're going to do this. So I am seeing people think in different ways, which, you know, I'm very, very excited to see that, that we don't get so much into this all or nothing thinking, you know, we're going to have the party or we're not. It's, you know, we decided everyone was going to stay home and we were going to zoom, right? So there's that flexibility in thinking. You were talking about traveling. That definitely I've seen a big change in that, you know, that we're here on our beautiful island. And a lot of us are used to traveling to other places. And now it's either too difficult or there's too many restrictions. And I love the term staycation, right? That sometimes, well, maybe it's time to explore this place that I live. And what are the things, you know, fortunately, we're not shoveling snow today. And there's we can be outside, you know, if that's the type of activity that you'd like to do, or maybe when's the last time you've explored one of our own museums or things that you would explore and other places and use this as an opportunity. I know personally, like I really enjoyed not having as much traffic for a while. And, you know, I started to do a few things that normally I was like, it's like, Oh, no, this is a good time to do that activity. Right. So opportunity is being presented to us. And rather than looking at it, you know, what can't I do? What is my loss? What are the things that are being taken away from me? Is that making space for me to do something a little different? Absolutely. You know, when I came here in 1971 and moved here, my friends in the mainland came to me and they said, Don't you get island fever? You know, you can't get in the car and drive forever. You know, and I told them, I said, No, you know, I haven't begun to see this island this state. There are so many wonderful things. One of my friends who was with the Hawaii Mountain and Trail Club. Every year from my birthday, I said, Look, don't get me a present. Take me someplace I haven't been on this island. And he would take me that place. And I would see something I had never seen before on this island. Not that far from me. I mean, most of us live on the coastline. You go five, 10 minutes inland. You're in a new place and a place much different than the places, you know, that are shopping centers and our malls and everything. And this is a glorious place to live. And so many of us don't take advantage of that. Maybe we did when we were younger a little bit. But then as we got older, we became more stayed and more, you know, sort of restricted more in the habit of things. And you're right. This is a time for creativity. This is a time to break out of habits and look for joy in places that we haven't looked for in a long time. Right. Well, I'll show one of my personal experiences. You know, one of the gifts of COVID is I had more time because I wasn't in the car as much. And then I had this choice of how, how was I going to fill this time? And for me, it became a challenge of doing something different. So I learned how to stand up how to work. Right. And that was something that was safe. I can see people, but I'm not close to them. And definitely gave me a feeling of normalcy. This is something, you know, whether there was a pandemic going on or not that I could do. And this is some of the brainstorming that I do with clients. You know, maybe there's a list of things that you've always thought about, like I've always wanted to do or, you know, go see on our Island. Okay, what do you have to do to do that? Right. And yeah, maybe there's things that aren't open. So that, you know, gets knocked off the list, but keep being creative and keep trying new things. That is part of, right? Our mental health, positive experiences. And I think that's the other thing too. I like that, you know, you told your friend, we don't have to do this by ourselves. We can reach out to our friends, our family. And like, this is what I'm thinking about. I want to do something different. I just had a mom that I talked to recently, and she said, you know, before the pandemic, we used to do puzzles all the time. And then we just got so busy. But then with doing home, you know, distance learning with school, we were with each other a lot more. And we started doing things that we've just gotten too busy to do. So, you know, there's a great example of a family capitalizing on that time. And, you know, not just plugging into screens and being isolated from each other, but doing something and reviving, you know, memories of fun times together. Absolutely. Now, I'm guessing from the thing at the bottom on my screen, we're running a little short of time. Is that true, Deanna? I'm not seeing that. Oh, okay. We got some more time. What I was trying, what I wanted to say to people was, because we've got another program coming up, is that fear is like an onion. And we can peel off the various layers as we go. And underneath that fear is things like anger, things like grief, things like sorrow, things like shame. And in the future, we're going to be talking about those as well. And I wanted to make sure before we run out of time here that we let the audience know, and the people viewing, that we're going to be talking a lot about these things. It's a very complex problem. And there's lots of facets to it. But like Deanna says, there's lots of things we can do to bring us joy, to deal with it, to make choices for us that will make our life more positive rather than more negative. So I just wanted to get that in. Yeah, absolutely. And my little message up there, Ken, is we have about six minutes, so we're good. We're good. We'll spend a little bit of time. Maybe it's now a good time to talk about, tell our viewers about what they can do if they want to ask us questions or give us some of their thoughts. And I know you have that information, Deanna. Yeah, I do. Anyone that has any more questions for us, they're welcome to actually just saw it up on the screen. They can email us at questions at thinktechhawaii.com. And we'll either respond to you via email or we will address your question in a later show. Just circling back, Ken, to what you're talking about, the concept of fear and peeling back these layers. Yeah, one of the huge important parts about this fear is what are the behaviors that we do when we're afraid or when others are afraid? And how can we help ourselves with that? Sometimes, again, I was just kind of going in that direction of like, oh, this gift of time and all these great things that we can do with it. But for a lot of people keeping busy keeps negative feelings at bay. If I'm too busy and I'm too tired, I don't think about those things. And maybe I have too much time now. But, you know, Ken and I very much like to talk about maybe some of those underlying issues that we do have strategies that people can use. One, I do want to slide in here real quick that you and I have talked about, Ken. And that was, you know, one of the gifts that my clients has given me is most of us know what a hotline is. If you're having a crisis, you know, the hotlines are to prevent a crisis from happening. I learned from one of my clients that he uses warm lines. And I had never even heard of them before. And more because of the coronavirus, more and more these lines are opening up. And it's pretty easy. You can Google them. And they're an opportunity just to have another person to talk to. So I do want to give people that tool that, you know, if you are finding yourself, you know, just not feeling that you're in crisis, but definitely feeling isolated, feeling alone. Things are happening. Things are, people are creating programs to improve that situation. And you can be a part of that. You can be a part of the receiving end. And for some people, it's possible for creating opportunity to help others. So, you know, that's one of my little pearls of the day is, you know, go check out warm lines and find out what they're about and see if that's something you could use, or maybe somebody you know. Yeah, absolutely. I think that last part is very important as well. Because the people we know, the people who are friends, who are family, are some of the warmest lines we can hook into. And the interesting thing about the pandemic is we are able to go virtual and make contact with a lot of people that we haven't been able to make contact with before, or have just been, like you say, too busy to do so. Some of my relatives on the mainland, we now zoom regularly. And I'm talking into relatives and friends that I haven't talked to in a long time, virtually. The other key to talking to them and making that line warm rather than cold is to share. A lot of times in the past when we've shared with email or snail mail or any other kind of communication, we've stuck to more surface type of things. We haven't, we've saved our very deepest thoughts and feelings for when we're together in person. And what I'm encouraging everybody to do that I know, including my family and friends, is to share that stuff that is very much more important. The important stuff of what we find valuable, what we like, what we care about each other. This is the time to say it, especially when so many people are leaving us. Now is the time to tell them how much you care and how important they are in your life, you know, than waiting until they're gone or waiting until you can't talk to them anymore, that they're locked away in a facility that you can't visit. So now is the perfect time to make your lines, whoever they're to, make them warm. Absolutely. And I do like the part about not waiting. You know, if anything, Corona has taught us about the unexpected and, you know, that concept of us not knowing what's going to happen next, we need to capitalize on right now. If we do have that opportunity, you know, say those words, you know, take a little bit of that risk. Most of the time you'd be pretty well rewarded, I think. Yeah. And I really emphasize the fact of who has made a difference in your life. The sad things is that I had a number of teachers who I really admired when I was young and a number of mentors and they've gone. And I never was able to tell them how much they meant to me in my life, how important they were. And most of those people, teachers and helpers and people who have done you a service, they never get full that. And sometimes it's like you're out there trying to help people. And you're never knowing if you really were a help. And for somebody to come up and say, you know, you made a difference in my life. Wow. I love that. I really love that. And the sense that it how little, you know, would cost a person to say that, but how big the gift would be. And I just got then a note that we have one minute left. Yeah, I think that's what a great thing to think like, you know, who am I going to think today? Is there somebody, you know, and I think we get the reward from that as well when we see the response from that person. And it's healing for both of us, right? Absolutely. And I want to thank all the viewers who tuned in today for joining us. I also want to thank Jay and Haley and Eric for supporting us and Think Tech Hawaii. It's been a real pleasure. And I hope that we'll see you in future shows. If you want to know when we're coming on, just check with Think Tech Hawaii and they can tell you when our next show is. And we look forward to it. We look forward to peeling that onion and talking about all the facets and especially the changes that are happening all around us that you may be worried about or concerned about or have questions about. So thank you all for tuning in. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Absolutely.