Mind the Gap

We tend to think about change in relation to the states we move to or from: the response to the Covid-19 pandemic is about the freedom before it arrived compared with the restrictions of the lock-down.  The key component, though, is the transition. We quite quickly adapt to new situations, and having to work from home or not being able to meet friends becomes the new normal.  What may be overlooked is the process of getting from one state to the next, and it’s here that resilience comes into play. 

How easily are you able to adapt?  If someone close to you has died from a coronavirus infection, adaptation will be very much more difficult – the impact may well push you over the threshold and into post-traumatic stress, which is what grieving is.  At the other end of the continuum the lockdown may not be much more than the inconvenience of not being able to do whatever you want, but with all change there is a transition, crossing the space from one state to another, and resilience is the skill that helps you to negotiate the gap between them. 

Resilience skills can be measured.  Using our Challenge of Change Profile to illustrate, someone who scores high on the tendency to ruminate about emotional upsets and also tends not to acknowledge how they’re feeling will find it much more difficult to make the change.  People who ruminate a lot are also less able to maintain perspective, and will tend to catastrophise: simply not being able to see friends is inflated to the level of trauma.  In this way they become stuck in the gap, not able to accept the new situation and pining for what’s passed.  If you find yourself in this situation, the good news is that resilience is not only measurable but can also be learned, and as with learning any new skill, practise makes perfect.  There is no magic bullet, just a clear understanding of what’s required and diligently putting it into practise.

The first requirement is to wake up.  When our attention has been hijacked by churning over thoughts about ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ we’re drawn into the nightmare of rumination, but like any nightmare it exists only in our minds: when we wake up from a nightmare, we’re thankful it was after all just a dream.  Once awake, attention is freed and becomes available for you to direct in an intentional way, rather than being confused by negative emotion.  We can then take the last two steps: getting perspective – becoming detached, in the language of the training programme – and finally, letting go of the ruminative churning. 

It really is that simple, just four steps, but an important caveat is again about the threshold: if you are grieving, over the death of someone close to you, what you may need is the much more personal, one-on-one help that bereavement counselling offers.  Thankfully, even during the pandemic, these situations will affect the minority.  For most of us, practising the four steps makes the process of coping with the change from normal to lock-down to new normal a smooth transition rather than a series of crises.