Struggling during COVID – 19?

How are you feeling as the bears disappear out of the windows?  

How do you lift your mood on your walk, now that the rainbow chalk in your neighbours driveway that once brightened your day hasn’t been replaced after it rained last?

Teddy in the window

To be honest, the first part of isolation due to COVID – 19 was held together with the feeling of connection by counting “Bears in the Window” and rainbow chalk drawing in our local area. 

These “small” events gave our family a sense of belonging and connection to our fellow man. The time brought rise to the saying, “we are all in this together”, and the reality of isolation inspired the title of Unity Studios latest art exhibition, “Together: apART”. 

For me, each day has had it’s ups and downs. My family has been largely unaffected by the crisis, and so we have come to somewhat enjoy our isolation. Despite the heartache and compassion we feel for others suffering in this time. 

The necessary isolation was dubbed, “homelife” by a member of the Unity Studios family. This was indeed a more positive way to describe and discuss isolation to youngsters, calling isolation, homelife instead. This terminology was adopted by our mentors and many families who belong at Unity Studios. 

Why? Why has it been so important to be selective around our language at this time? 

The answer can be found by exploring the revised version of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”.

Believe it or not; the bears in the windows, the rainbow chalk on driveways and footpaths, bin outing movement, viral tiktok dances and trends, ANZAC Day, drive by birthday celebrations, ZOOM meetings, facetime and calls with family and friends are the things that have gotten us through as a society. 

Without these community driven happenings, we would potentially not feel belonging and love, feeding our social needs. Humans on the most part are wired for connection and geared toward social interaction. Not addressing social needs makes it impossible to achieve esteem needs such as, managerial responsibility; ordering the day to day runnings of our lives or cognitive needs such as grasping knowledge and meaning. 

So when you ask yourself why can’t I get my stuff together? The answer lies below – 

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

You cannot expect to successfully manage the day to day running of your life, assimilate new information and learn if you are first not addressing your biological/physiological, safety needs and your social needs. 

The devastating impact of COVID- 19, has us for the most part, spending most of our time and energy on addressing our biological/physiological and safety needs. 

Once these needs are met, we can get about attending to our social needs and perhaps even move up to the higher needs that involve feeling confident, learning, appreciating beauty/feeling gratitude. 

It would be unrealistic to expect everyone right now to reach self actualisation; to realise their personal potential or further; transcendence to help others achieve self actualisation.

 

For this reason, it needs to be said, look after your basic needs, stay connected to your fellow man and measure your expectations of yourself at this time. 

I will leave you with this gem of a quote that has gone viral by Melissa, at mellowdoodles.com.  

“Look how much you’ve already managed to adapt to. Look how resilient you’ve already been. There’s no “right” way to respond to this because it’s never, ever happened before. Give yourself some credit. There’s no one in the whole world who has this figured out yet. So it’s absolutely okay if you don’t either”. ~ Mellow Doodles

Mellow Doodles

If you’d like to know more about mentoring for all ages and abilities at Unity Studios, click here – https://unitystudios.com.au/academic

 

 

Other source used to write this blog – CT2 Paper 1 – Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

S McLeod – Simply psychology, 2007 – highgatecounselling.org.uk

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