2 year Pandemic Anniversary, how has it impacted us?
The pandemic is an unfolding of history in present times. We are still going to be learning from the impact of this for decades to come. From children born in these times who have never known a world without masks and distancing, teens who lost their normal and had to relearn the world and are having to live with this ‘normalcy’ with a sense of threat, it can all go away, parent who have had to pivot anc change how they work, balance survive to the elders who have had to confront their age, vulnerability and difficulty in keeping up with a world that they increasingly don’t recognise.
March 24 2020 we went into lockdown. Suddenly the world as we knew it changed.
In the 2 years since the lockdown and the start of the pandemic, I covered 2100 hours of therapy with families and will be sharing some of my learnings with you. 2100 hours of listening to people real time working through what they are feeling. People across continents, time zones, economic strata, age, gender, sexuality. Lets take some time to learn from this.
Challenge- Schools shutting, and parents taking on the role of educators
Learning- Children don't need to be in school to learn, but parents need school to also share their load while they carry out the other ‘invisible work’ they do. Our society is built on parts fitting into each other.
Parents of children with younger kids were able to build on learning when they shifted the focus from only academic work into contextual work. Getting involved in cooking, cleaning, laundry.. Built great skills for children- peeling, mashing, cutting, folding laundry, sorting size, colour, cleaning the house.
Once parents of teens got a cleaner window into their children’s academic lives, they were able to see a lot that was going on which was new to them. From understanding the impact of their ‘pressure’ on the children, to learning the other ‘pressures’ kids felt.
Working parents had to either let go of work, or had to learn to balance with each other, but the weight of doing it all brought cracks into all other parts of their lives.
Stay at home parents realised they had to learn to draw boundaries to be able to manage the expectations of the people in their lives.
Challenge Uncertainty
Learning- Slow down, change your focus from the future to closer to present.
With uncertainty came anxiety. The more people held onto old goals the more it became hard to adapt to the situation as it was changing in the now. The anxiety led to a pressure cooker environment with frequent outburts. No one had anywhere to escape from the steam.
By shifting financial goals, saving for your child going abroad to study, moving back to family homes and saving on expenses people were able to reduce their need for clarity and worry. This translated into happier homes and healthier environments. The goal was no longer about giving them the best from outside, but making the best of what was available inside.
Challange- no space—> small issues= big fights
Learning- Walk away from a problem to find ways to solve it. Time and space are key components to solutions.
With spaces closing in, the usual method of using distractions to walk away from problems were no longer there. Increasingly small problems became huge explosions and threatened to break the foundation of everything one might have stood for. The importance of creating spaces for cooling down and not reacting then and there became a skill people needed to rely on mentally not just physically. From marital issues, to parent child issues, the claustrophobia was felt by all. The group think of ‘this is how we do it’ needed to be replaced with ‘this is how I do it, and this is how you do it’ with respect for all concerned.
Challenge - Pressure cooker feeling
Learning - Self care is not just a buzz word
Pandemic stressed on the importance of selfcare. The basic need we all have to slow down and take stock of what we are feeling. The repair we need to give to our physical, emotional and mental body by giving it a break and letting it refresh. For a lot of people self care was
-changing task from work to home like stepping away from the presentation to teach the kids
- letting go of home and focus on skill building like cooking simpler meals but burning the midnight oil studying for that course they wanted to master
- vegetating in front of the TV or social media as their way to just switch off.
The pressures created in pandemic made people understand that none of these were actually self care. Self care is the act of moving from should to feel. Meditation, exercise, sleep, diet became the goals not just to look great but to feel great.
Meditation to be able to bring attention to how they are feeling and what they need to reduce
Exercise to help release endorphins that help us feel good. However exercising to reach a goal takes it away from feel to should and is not self care.
Sleep as an essential not the buffer to all activities that dont get finished on time.
Diet as not what we do to lose weight but to notice how the food we eat affects our emotions and our ability to function.
TIPA
Self care
Shifting of goals
Learning is contextual
Need for support structures
None of the challanges were new, they just could no longer be ignored. We need to make sure we dont lose this momentum of change and go back to the old patterns.