While someone embodies the idea that Italy is #reopening, others feel the urge to stay in. How can we best experience this new adjustment, with awareness?
A sign on a shop's door, with the word 'OPEN'.
This sign has a whole new meaning, as many other things do, in times of COVID19.
'OPEN' feels like the opposite of lockdown, and many people appear to interpret this 'sign' with a black-and-white approch: all open vs still closed. I mean it from a psychological and behavioural perspective. Truth is, we need to get familiar with the grey areas in between, again, with great flexibility.
I'd like to widen the reflection around the word 'OPEN' and how we might interpret it to shape our mindset, communication, interactions.
OPEN as open-minded
OPEN as 'inclusive'
OPEN as mindful
OPEN as compassionate
As some things are changing very quickly we are observing a variety of reactions and among all this there is a great risk to fall into the trap of missing the wider picture and grow resentful words and feelings.
How frequently have you heard yourself or others say: 'them, the people', 'they don't understand', 'they don't care about us', 'they ...'. Those who wear a mask on their chin, those who form groups regardless of the distances. And those others, the 'hypocondriacs' that are consumed by fear and decide not to go out. Them, the others ...
While the origin of this kind of thinking it's easily understandable, generally responding to the 'Threath system' of our brains which strives to protect us from perceived danger (P. Gilbert), I believe it's important to raise awareness on the fact this approach is a risk, the 'other' can easily become our worst enemy, we grow anger, anxiety, and unhelpful emotions tend to escalate with consequences on multiple levels, including our own health and the messages we give as educators and citizens.
In addition to that, feeding this way of thinking can disconnect us from others when we actually need connection, or rigidly divide us into opposite groups, which will provide us with one kind of sense of belonging, indeed, but one that will easily generate violence and bring us too far from the necessary awareness of our #interconnectedness, as a species on this Planet.
Let's start by acknowledging and taking care of these possible feelings of anger, frustration and resentment, self-criticism won't help here. Once we allow ourselves to feel what we feel, we allow ourselves to let the feeling become less intense and pass, as a wave. And once the feeling is there, and smoother, we can activate those regions of the brain that allow us to explore our experience further, and to make healthy choices.
During this #pandemic we noticed how difficult it is to acknowledge the presence of multiple perspectives and develop an understanding of the different ways we can navigate our experience, of the lockdown, of social distancing, of #restarting.
What do we mean by 'perspective taking'?
Perspective-taking is defined as 'the act of perceiving a situation or understanding a concept from an alternative point of view, such as that of another individual'. It is related to #empathy, #prosocial behaviour and the reduction of biased beliefs and #stereotyping.
Adopting another's perspective requires the ability to represent the self as distinct from others, the development of a theory of mind to realize that others have mental states in the first place, and the explicit recognition that others' mental states and perceptions can differ from one's own (Epley, N., & Caruso, E. M. - 2009).
Todd et al. findings (2015) suggest that experiencing emotions associated with #uncertainty can increase reliance on one’s own egocentric perspective when reasoning about other peoples’ mental states .
This can help us understand how challenging it can be to activate this important tool for the wellbeing of individuals and societies in the present, unprecedented situation. Perspective taking can also help us consider humans on a continuum, less 'black and white', less 'me and them, the people'.
We are all human beings, experiencing a delicate, ongoing dialogue with life, death, health, safety, freedom of movement, affection, the need for sociality or economic support, enthousiasm for restarting, anxiety of going out again.
And this might change day by day, for both internal and external reasons.
'The way we think about situations is important for how we orientate towards them and for our behaviour': Paul Gilbert, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Derby, shares his proposal to transition from the concept of social distancing to that of safe relating.
He connects this different use of words, which - as psychologists often say - deeply shape our own experience of situations, with the core of his research and practice: #compassion and #selfcompassion. It is a topic that will be discussed in this portal, for its great transformative power in nowadays clinical and educational interventions.
For now, I'd like to focus on the fact that compassion is defined as 'a sensitivity to the suffering/distress of self and others with a commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it'. It is therefore a motivator, based on a signal, or awareness, of a distress: we are motivated to do something about it.
The two components of compassion are:
Courage to engage with suffering/stress, instead of finding ways to eliminate it
Wise dedication to acquire skills to alleviate and prevent suffering, taking our own responsibility of this process
Safe relating reminds me of a delicate, caring approach, in which we acknowledge each other's boundaries, and carefully ask to get closer, reminding me of the concept of consent. It is something I feel I can more easily teach to a child, and actually goes beyond the idea of sanitary precautions.
Probably, I could say that one major part of my job is that of helping people finding and learning ways to 'safely relate' to others and to themselves, even in presence of the uncomfortable emotions that are one aspect of every relationship.
I guess we can use this approach to feel more oriented and less confused, or divided, by this new difficult phase. We are the others, and everybody hurts, sometimes [Quote].
So, what meaning of the word 'open' do you want to cultivate with your committed actions, these days?
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