—
I recently got in touch with a friend to ask how he was coping in lockdown. I said how much I was enjoying the chance to avoid the daily commute, spend more time with my wife and catch-up on all the introverted activities I hadn’t been able to make time for (like my mini-ambition of being able to play John Legend’s ‘All of me’ on the piano).
‘I think we have a very different lockdown to you guys’, he replied.
I stopped for a moment to realize his predicament of having to face the home-schooling of two little boys while managing a day-job and supporting his partner. Then I realized how the lockdown could well be forcing us all to go through a form of grief.
The go-to grief cycle is by Kubler-Ross. It starts with denial, moves to anger (including anxiety), then into depression before reaching the bargaining stage and ending up in the state of acceptance. Following a year of losses in 2019 – I moved house, had my first major health-scare and lost my job – it could be that I’ve been in this acceptance stage for a few months. At least I wonder if it seems that way when I compare myself to others. The effects of Coronavirus will change our lives beyond all recognition, but it may be that a rocky year of change forced me to go through an intense grief-cycle. One which many of us will only be starting to recognize in ourselves now.
There are no timescales in Kubler-Ross’s Grief Cycle. This is because we all process grief at different rates. And once we’re out of the worst of this pandemic, we may have a lot to grieve for; loss of jobs, loss of contact with others, for some a loss of loved ones. Maybe my optimism arrives from a deeper, inner sense of knowing that we will get through this and be better for it. But it will take time to move through it all. And we won’t all be at the same stages at the same time. Some of us may need a lot of help to finally arrive at a place of acceptance.
For those who do get there, here are five things we may just look upon differently:
1. Our mental wellbeing
According to the World Economic Forum, anxiety was the leading global mental health concern in 2019. Within a few weeks of 2020, fears for our physical safety and economic stability have sky-rocketed our anxieties to levels we probably haven’t seen since wartime. This need to better manage our fears, worries, doubts, and concerns will become our highest priority under lockdown. Our collective consciousness needs it to be.
Through our reluctance to become crushed under the weight of such change, we will be forced to find ways to talk openly about how good management of our minds and emotions is essential to making good choices – in work and in life – and to the relationships, we have with ourselves and each other.
2. Our physical health
Not in any of our lifetimes has a global emergency of this magnitude threatened the physical wellbeing of so much of the world’s population. All of our hands have been washed and scrubbed until they’re raw, red and craggy. Out on the streets, facemasks and gloves prevail while most of us stay locked in our homes, unable to get out and move our bodies to the daily rhythms we were used to. Maintaining our physical health is now at the forefront of everyone’s minds, but we’re also becoming aware of how our physical health impacts those around us.
When we come to accept our need to prioritize our health, we may also see how our physical and mental health plays off each other; without good sleep we become lethargic, stressed, have a lower mood. But we also reduce the capacities of our memory and immune systems. In the old world, our business of ‘doing’ was first and foremost to a successful life. Maybe in the new one, we will see better how success in life will come from living out a healthy, balanced lifestyle based on clear thinking. No longer can we short-cut the critical pillars to our health and risk putting ourselves and the lives of those around us at risk. We will have to squash any expectations of having to ‘man-up’, ‘toughen up’ or ‘get on with it’.
3. Time spent with people we love
Locking down has forced us to either spend more time with those we love or isolate ourselves from them completely. Whether you’re close to your loved ones or not, losing the freedom to choose when you can spend time with family and friends may well just force us all to better appreciate the people who really love us.
This, along with an increasing concern for each other’s physical and mental wellbeing, could elevate our levels of empathy towards family, friends and even strangers to something we’ve never seen before. And boy do we need it.
4. Our relationship with work
My wife works long hours in recruitment. Since losing my job, I now work part-time. The trade-off from this is that I take on most of the tasks of cleaning, washing, ironing and grocery shopping while she provides most of the income. I also get time to go to the gym and to flex my writing muscles. While this arrangement works, I can’t say I’m not lonely sometimes. I enjoy being behind the scenes, getting our home in order and keeping things running along, and I love getting to stay fit and healthy while I follow my writing passions.
But in just a few weeks of lockdown, I can already see how my mood has improved since I get to spend more time with my beloved partner. Now I can share more of her joy, her laughter and the opportunity to bond over the conversation. And it’s never about work.
At the end of all this, I hope we will see how we have all been living at the extreme end of life. Our daily lives have been completely out of balance. Maybe we can hope to change the mantra of ‘live to work’ and start to live out our true lives again.
5. The interconnectedness of life
With the exclusion of Sweden, most of the developed world is currently under lock-down. Look up to the sky and you’ll see very few – if any – passenger flights. The world is close to stopping in its tracks, and whether you live in Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, London or Paris, you will be affected by the virus. Every person around the world will be changed by this and we’ll all change together. We will all see how our individual actions have the capacity to harm others, how a few angry words said in haste could risk another’s mental wellbeing, and how we need to co-exist better as a human race within the fragile system of our planet.
—
*******************************
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
*************************
—
Photo courtesy Shutterstock.