Las Cruces musician, counseling grad student: Be calm, resilient; reach out during crisis

Editor’s note: Singer, songwriter, musician Christine Sanders has for more than 15 years been a member of Las Cruces’ Hard Road Trio, which plays “original southwestern acoustic music at the crossroads of Roots and Bluegrass. She also has completed 21 credits toward a master’s degree in counseling.

I've heard fear described as a response to an obvious threat whereas anxiety is the response to perceived or imagined danger. We can often take action in the face of a clear and present threat, but there's a component of helplessness with anxiety, and not knowing what to do adds more anxiety. I'm sorry I can't cite the source – just my memory.

Dr. Murray Bowen was a pioneer in family therapy and one idea of his that I especially love is that as family systems ramp up their anxiety, the presence of even one person that can stay calm will interrupt that process. So with our present situation. How do we each find calm knowing that it will help not only ourselves but our families and our communities? Beyond our own practices of meditation, prayer, connection with Nature, or listening to music, we can make contact with people we know who calm us. We can monitor where we get our information and how it's presented. We can be aware of when we're tuning out (TV, media, chardonnay) to avoid facing responsibility, or tuning in to take a break for renewal. We can accept the gift of time to savor our backyards, our instruments, our coloring books, our favorite authors, those CDs we bought and never listened to.

We can check in with our older relatives often by phone and exchange calm. My father-in-law just shared his experience of being in London during the Blitz; a notice would scroll across the bottom of a movie screen saying that there were incoming aircraft and that you could stay in place at your own risk. Now we have incoming virus-craft, and we haven't had a war on the mainland for a long, long time. We did, however, rally for a war effort. That's what we're being called to do right now. We can ration ourselves to consume less rather than hoard more. We can ask ourselves every day, what's one thing I can do that is good for me, and one thing that is good for my community?

Also, there's resilience. While we build our bodies' resilience to infection, we can build up our emotional resilience. Sugar consumption applies to both these areas for me. Less sugar in my diet reduces the environment that germs like. I'm also less prone to dramatic mood shifts with less sugar and alcohol. Daily walks help on both counts, too. And sleep. Less sleep produces more anxiety. Now is a time when we can get regular sleep at regular hours, and importantly, we can turn off our screens an hour or two before we go to bed. Developing the best sleep habits possible and building up our resilience, we can respond to the unpredictability this crisis presents.

Chris Sanders is a Las Cruces musician, music teacher and music camp administrator who has done graduate work in counseling “to become more effective in my work and find more joy in my life.” Sanders is the co-writer of “We Are Enron,” the 2008 musical that premiered at NMSU. She moved to Las Cruces in 1990 when her husband, Mark, was accepted into the professional golf management program at NMSU. She was an adjunct professor of voice and directed vocal jazz ensembles at NMSU 1996-2006.