Integration of Caution, Care & Confidence as we move ahead!

As the country and most parts of the world slowly and cautiously plans and organizes to move ahead post the lockdowns, time to maintain even more focus on the preparedness and emotional strength. Needless to say, that in all possibility, we would continue to keep countering more changes that might be required to be dealt with as things set in for the ‘new normal’.

Firstly, as seen in the above ‘Change Curve’ - based on the Swiss psychiatrist Kubler Ross’s ‘The 5 stages of grief model’ which was introduced in her book ‘On Death and Dying’. To think back, since the time we were shell shocked with the sudden and very quick changes of lockdown, working remotely, social distancing and so on. It was kind of telling on us that this is not real, oh is it true, is it actually happening, why, why…no better way to deal with this. Also, being ‘Social animals’ it was, ever so difficult to continue, in this restricted way, for so long period, day in and day out.

“We human beings are social beings. We come into the world as a result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities.” – Dalai Lama

This is one main reason that most of us are having such a tough time being confined within the four walls and for days together, only to venture out for bare essentials and not for offices, business places, meetings, social functions, sports and other entertainments - movies, clubs, malls, restaurants, weekend meets - parties and so on. This sudden confinement has been a huge change in our daily normal life with of course psychological nuances taking precedents.

Therefor from the ‘shock – denial-frustration-depression’- moving on to ‘acceptance’ and then to finally deciding on the sensible course of action to ‘integration’ is quite a journey with daily new ways to adopt and for any human it takes a huge toll both mentally and physiologically and therefore we saw the social media and everywhere else the bombardment of articles, information’s and advisories (and rightly so) on ‘Mindfulness’, ‘Meditation’, ‘Yoga’ and so on.

This is very well described by Robert Green, in his book ‘48 Laws of Power’; where he writes - ‘Everyone understand the need for change in the abstract but on the day to day level people are creatures of habit. Too much innovation is traumatic, and will lead to revolt.’ That’s exactly what we saw or still seeing in many instances as people are defying cautions to get out of the imposed change. Yes, the biggest issue was - that this unprecedented and massive (lockdown and other precautions) which had to be mandated and made compulsory – of course it was needed for a much larger cause but that again takes time to sink in our conscious attitude. The very unexpectedness and huge implications of it put our brains into ‘Lobotomy’ – will discuss on this bit later.

‘Human Psychology contains many dualities one of them being that even while people understand the need for change, knowing how important it is…. they are irritated and upset by changes that affect them personally.’ – Robert Green. Therefore, it was so important for constant communications on how to deal with this on a daily basis, when and how we can move on and what guidelines to be followed for everyone’s safety and betterment.

Now getting this discussion on with how our brain would respond when such changes fill us with fear, frustration, anxiety, boredom, apathy (figure above - courtesy 'Coherence' by Dr.Alan Watkins) and put our pre-frontal cortex (PFC) on lobotomy (shutdown of the brain and thinking, ‘making sense’ of things around goes for a toss) and the amygdala gets hijacked (fear and stress sets in). This concept was brilliantly demonstrated by Dr Alan Watkins in his TedTalk – ‘Being Brilliant Every Single Day’ and also as written in his book ‘Coherence’. In the negative state of mind, the hormone ‘Cortisol’ takes charge which sends us the alarms of ‘Fight, flight or drops dead’ and in the spiral of emotional stress in every such transition situations.

I am also thinking that with this kind of state of mind how difficult it would have been for many of us not only to carry on with the professional and personal chores but also to attain training sessions and courses on the online mode. To negotiate the negative thought patterns, counter them and then moving on to the positive zone would have been quite a drain on the will-power and tasking on the personal grit for a quite a lot of us, I believe.

I am sure, all this while most of us must have been on our ‘personal change curve journey’ (like we move on through our learning curve when we get into new learnings, new beginnings) and even still negotiating the twist and turns. Hopefully, the precedents of the hormones - DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone - is an endogenous steroid hormone) and Adrenalin hormone, would have slowly taken the better of the negativity and now we need more this positive energy to propel forward.

In his book ‘Coherence’ as we as also see in his famous TedTalks – Dr Watkins talks about the tool to counter the stress and negativity to keep performing better every day, to be in the ‘Coherent’ zone and that is to simply – B.R.E.A.T.H.E (BREATHE – Breathe Rhythmically Evenly And Through Heart Every day). Now this has a whole lot of neuroscience and connected with something Dr Watkins described as HRV (Heart Rate Variability) and much more – will get into that later some later posts of mine but this one is a very effective technique and if done for 3 to 5 mins only give quite good results. This is nothing to do with Meditation techniques as such but just being mindful, being here and now with the rhythmic slow breathing. In most meditation practices slow and mindful breathing is the core of the technique – be it ‘Chakra Meditation’, Pranayama, Transcendental Meditation and so on.

Slowly and with absolute caution what is needed are following the ground rules, the precautionary measures and personal care and compassion, for getting back to work, attending to commercial and occupational needs and other necessary activities and with the required adjustments get deftly on to the ‘business as usual’ mode.

Therefore, as we move ahead and start getting into smarter ways of operating in the new world of things, as carried in by COVID 19, let’s build on our adaptive and agile mindset and keep sharpening it with positive vibes, mindfulness, physical activities, meditation and keep learning and improving every day.