More and more people present with symptoms of stress and anxiety through the ebb and flow of the Covid 19 pandemic period as we continue to navigate its unpredictable and unchartered waters. Essentially, we have been negotiating, the potential of each person of all demographic, at an individual and cluster level, to contract this disease. Psychologically, we are confronted on a daily basis with a multiplicity of possibilities – keeping virus-free, contracting the virus, ending up in hospital intubation or to be asymptomatic and a carrier to vulnerable loved ones.

The individual can be further unsettled and feel dysregulated (albeit physically protected) as the social system (our social external unifying object) attempts to recalibrate itself in relation to this invisible threat, through regulatory measures for face covering, hand sanitizer, social distancing, remote workplace.

I have been reflecting on what are the primary triggers of this psychological pandemic of anxiety and what are some indicators in terms of building our immunity for sustainable long-term resilience over the coming autumnal and winter months. What can we put in place as stabilisers for social and personal regulation as the journey continues? This article attempts to address some of these considerations at an individual and social collective level.

The trauma of isolation and abandonment

Trends emerging from the presenting issues of recent months in the clinical setting suggest that the feelings of anxiety, overwhelm and panic have and continue to orient out of the clients’ felt experience of isolation and abandonment. The following are among some examples of those traumatic events described:

• The horror of being a patient in hospital isolation units or hotel room recovery outposts, cut off from the body of their families
• The anguish of family members being separated from infected loved ones with a gaping wound of longing in their heart and soul to reach out, touch and console them
• The personal trauma of seeing loved ones die horrific deaths and even be buried in constrained and alien circumstances beyond their control. A core function of the ritual of the funeral rite for the family is to initiate their grieving process through the ritual of memory table, coffin bearing, a physical gesture of condolence through handshake and embrace, the gathering of the extended community to honour and celebrate the life and death and resurrection of the human person.
• The vicarious social trauma and survivor’s relief (and subsequent guilt) excited as people awoke to national death notifications on their bedside appliances.
• The numbing silence that descended in the living room space as people watched the hourly news feed of scenes of gasping bodies on the floors of hospital corridors.
• The social trauma of social fragmentation that we continue to negotiate behind the protective vizor of zoom communication in our personal and public lives

In these circumstances of imposed separation as in many others over past months, people have experienced devastating and overwhelming powerlessness that bypassed the fight-flight response and activated the freeze response. Some as they move out of this shock experience present with symptoms of PTSD. They report distressing episodes of shaking, tremors, panic attack, rumination (negative cycles of thinking that brings them down a rabbit hole), flashback and unwanted images.

The very good news is that more and more are becoming conscious about the importance of maintaining their mental health as part of their overall wellbeing and are taking personal responsibility around this. They are taking the opportunity on employment assistance programmes, insurance policy, independently accessing counselling, psychotherapy, coaching and other resources, where they will have the time and space to talk out these symptoms in a safe holding environment and gradually integrate them as they deepen their understanding and gain control over the distressing experience.

Working from Home

The novel norm of ‘working from home’ or ‘working remotely’, is proving to be becoming more and more fraught with challenges as workers exit the honeymoon phase of commuter fewer mornings and have the time for healthy rituals of walking, family breakfast etc. Some report a feeling of isolation and abandonment as they feel cut off from the organic flow of peer contact and feedback from colleagues. For some, they experience an increase in their self-monitoring / measuring system, their inner critic. This in turn activates the whip of their inner anxiety-provoking perfectionist who defends against the felt experience of failure or shame. When clients describe their catastrophic fantasy around this, they identify with a fear of being abandoned, seen to be of no use, let go, dispensible, becoming invisible. It would be a very worthwhile study to see if it is the case that when people are in isolation and cut off from the social engagement of the workplace setting, how this inner perfectionistic cycle is triggered. This seems to be the case from what I have observed presenting into my own therapeutic practice and in supervision reflections with colleagues.

Some clients and coachees have described an experience of overwhelm as the boundary between family/home life and work-life becomes blurred in the absence of (albeit welcomed for many) the daily scheduled rituals of ‘leaving home’, the daily commute, and the ‘coming home’ respectively. Is this about seeing one’s partner as ‘other’, having a ‘life’ outside the parameters of the family unit and the challenges and fruits of negotiating a healthy interdependence? Some young couples have spoken about the tension of feeling they are living in each other’s metaphorical pockets, a syndrome they would have observed their retired parents building strategies around, in terms of developing shared and separate hobbies and activities. Again, this is could be a piece for further research.

For others, they have become much more conscious of behaviour patterns embedded prior to Covid 19, in terms of bringing work and its demands home at the psychological level and the tension that has historically presented into their relationship with their family unit.

As some workers have moved into the ‘return to the workplace’ phase, they have identified with an anxiety that is triggered as they seek confirmation that the workplace will be a safe environment to return to. However, this reassurance is being sought after from their organisation’s policy and procedure that is struggling to comply with governmental directives that are fluid due to the unchartered nature of this social crisis.

Leadership Strategies

Roger Evans in his research on what makes for effective leadership borne out of over 25 years in Business Consultancy at a global level writes:

In every situation, it was clear to us that where there was some degree of Self- Reflection and Self Awareness there was the potential for quality leadership. Where it was missing then the leader was in trouble and what we observed repeatedly over the years in these cases, was that they failed in the short and medium-term by creating around themselves an environment of dysfunction …Without developing Self Awareness and our ability to reflect upon ourselves and our thoughts, feelings and behaviours we are almost completely focused outside ourselves – we tend to objectify everything outside ourselves – and are thus controlled by the environment around us, by other people and their thoughts and feelings, by the events of business, of family and of society. In the extreme, without the ability to self-reflect we become in effect victims to the world around us. We react rather than proact and we are not aware that we are doing so! (1)

Working with leaders at all levels across a diversity of sectors, I have seen a growing emergence of panic and anxiety symptoms that are experienced by the sufferer as debilitating and overwhelming. This overwhelm is due in most part to the ‘fear of the fear’, the ‘panic of the panic’. Essentially, these clients have not had a language to express what is happening as it is ‘their first time’ having such an experience. This is further intensified in the isolation of social distancing and working remotely where the person has the time and space to experience the sensations of their activated nervous system which they would otherwise be able to ‘switch off’ from through their busy lifestyle.

It is important that we name the social anxiety that is pandemic and through psychoeducation on social media and other platforms normalise its impact at the individual level. Essentially, we are feeling overwhelmed and anxious in great part due to our current social re-structuring, changing social mores, unpredictable economic climate. The systems that are holding us together as a society are in flux. Leaders will be the first to feel this impact and depending on their own personal makeup, may or may not strive to compensate for that uncertainty in their workplace.

As the social system struggles to recalibrate and revision a plan for going forward so too, the various public and private sectors resonate with this impact. Of course, this is more obvious at the level of the inhibition of productivity and output. However, in some instances, leadership seems to be aping governmental strategies for gaining some sense of foothold on a hopeful shoreline. Management can become a slave to strategic planning borne out of desperation to compensate for shifting sands of the marketplace. In the context of productivity and outcome, they create an even higher bar of expectation at the level of key performance indicators that can alienate rather than motivate their staff. However, these targets do not reflect the ‘new normal’ which is characterised by shifting sands and exert damaging stress levels in the working environment. This results in a social distancing that is compounded by a lack of empathic connection along the line of management that inhibits collaboration and optimum performance. How can leadership in these situations become more creative in uniting their teams in the mission of reshaping vision and strategy?

The successful CEO can experience a tectonic shift in their worldview if the organisation has been hit by the economic disintegration of Covid 19. This can resonate through all areas of their lives and some have spoken about or rather struggled to find the words to express, an overwhelming feeling of despair and hopelessness. They describe how they feel a growing wall of communication that shapes their relationships as they began to withdraw more and more from family engagement in an attempt at hiding feelings of shame of failure in their work performance as they perceive it. In turn partners and children distanced themselves from the unusual behaviour of their loved ones. Leaders with a position of high responsibility speak about the thoughts of suicide action they are hit at times with, where they long for a space of peace and non-judgement free of impossible expectations. There are the tragic cases where this fantasy is followed through with.

Evans concluded from his research findings that the following were the key indicators for successful and life-giving leadership:

• 1DL – Ability to Self Reflect – Self-awareness,
• 2DL – Awareness of one’s impact on others, understanding their difference and their group dynamics
• 3DL – The ability to consistently see the whole picture and the dynamics between the ‘part and the whole’. The art of ‘thinking systemically’ and understanding system forces
• 4DL – Individual freedom (free will) to both make clear decisions and then to drive delivery in the face of resistance “to be blown in the wind, to bend but to stand firm”
• 5DL – The ability to ask for appropriate help and support – internally and externally to the organisation

A journey of self-discovery and transformation

Some say they have become more conscious of the pilgrimage that is their daily lives as they were being forced more and more outside of their psychological and physical comfort zones. This experience prompted them to begin to identify what was necessary and what was surplus to requirements on their life path and to see just how resilient they were in fact, in the face of adversity.

The multi-universe systems of family/work/social have collided but also for some these areas of their lives have come significantly more into alignment. Some feel less fragmented in their daily routines as their energy resources have been refocused on their basic psychological needs for safety, belonging, empowerment and meaning and purpose.

There is evidence of awakening or ‘waking up’ at the level of individual and social culture and code. There is a growing realisation that we have become shapeshifters in terms of the multifarious roles we identify with and play in our daily lives – mother, father, sister, brother, lover, friend employee, consumer… – and the corollary expectations that can be unremitting and persecutory. How in each situation a certain drama is being played out that fits that particular relationship or social expectation.

For example, if I am the high functioning and resilient mother, father, sister, brother, lover, friend employee, consumer, wherein this picture is the real me and where is space for my needs to be met?

Some have become aware of have come under severe pressure in recent months trying to keep everything together for their partners and family. They initially felt empowered in this familiar role as the self-contained provider and the expression of altruism that went with it. It is then very disconcerting when they become conscious of feelings of resentment when they feel ‘pulled out of’ continuously, with no space for their own fears to be expressed or an oasis to recharge their own batteries. In turn, the proverbial cat became the target of the frustration. Children experiencing an unexpected and unfamiliar parental frown or growl at what is typically their regular and commonplace requests become confused and anxious. Clients have feedback that talking all this out with someone who can be an objective witness, be it professional or friend has helped them see that this, though indeed, unfamiliar and upsetting is on another level a normal reaction to the pressure cooker they are experiencing inside. Furthermore, they can get the tools to self-regulate and communicate with their families in a more real way and mutually nourishing way.

As in all moments of rupture and crisis, the Covid 19 pandemic has afforded a time and space globally to reflect on the parameters of our freedom and subsequent responsibility for our wellbeing at an individual and social level. There is a call to come apart from the diversity of these role expectations like those mentioned above, and to enter that inner space of self-identification, where we have a deeper sense of our authentic self – who we are and why we are … who has us here …what do we want for our lives … where we want to be in 5 years’ time … who is the one that is aware of all these reflections?

From this core place within, we can see that we are actually the conductor of this orchestra of the many roles we play and masks we wear. We can listen to the symphony of our lives – hear where we might be getting stuck in the unrelenting and anxiety-provoking rut of our unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others. From this vantage then we can filter out what needs to be prioritised in terms of being well and fully alive.

Lockdown and phased opening for many has meant spending more time in a confined space with loved ones or significant others. For many being physically cut off from the light relief of work colleagues and friends shone a light on their attachment styles in their primary relationships: whether they merge with the other and try to control the relationship out of a lack of trust; whether they maintain their distance and take a self-contained self-sufficient stance; or whether they can enjoy the give and take of a mutually nourishing relationship. Essentially revealing to us our long-embedded strategies of coming close and maintaining distance – the dance of relationships where we get a sense of the self and a sense of the other. For some families, relationships have come under pressure as roles in the household needed to be redefined in terms of shared responsibilities and self-care. At this relational level, some are seeing that the lockdown situation or phased opening has not introduced a foreign body into their patterns of relating to each other but rather has highlighted the need to treat what has been corroding the foundation bed of their primary relationships. And many are rising to the challenge.

Some have confronted in themselves unhealthy patterns of coping with stress and anxiety and have begun to address addictive cycles e.g. co-dependency in their relationships, alcohol and substance abuse, obsessive-compulsive behaviours. Some have taken this opportunity to identify a support network and a peer group that can help them work out a fitness and wellbeing programme for themselves that they can grow in self-efficacy.

Some strategies for ‘life to the full’ wellbeing at this challenging time

It is evident that as we progress through the stages of re-opening that In terms of healing and building immunity, the antidote to the anxiety and panic is the proximity virtual or otherwise of loved ones and significant others i.e. building up our systems of social engagement.

At this juncture, I have welcomed for myself personally and in my work with clients the findings of neuroscientific research that brings the whole person, body, mind and soul back into the mental health forum in an evidence-based, integrative and dynamic fashion. In particular, Peter Levine’s work on Somatic awareness and trauma and Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal theory. Both of these theoretical frameworks highlight the centrality of the social engagement nervous system in the healing of trauma and stress management. They emphasise the regulation of social engagement which calls out the human need for meaningful, life-giving relationships as crucial to wellbeing. This focus re-instates the body, mindful meditation, spiritual practice back into the current psychological debate. A forum I argue, that can become biased towards methodologies that attempt to integrate the feeling, intuitive, imaginative and spiritual mind solely through the cognitive functioning.

In my clinical practice and personal process, I have found some practical tools and exercises based on this theory provide very effective and empowering intervention and preventive tool for managing anxiety and panic attack. The focus is on one’s empathic relationship with oneself as the foundation stone for coping with situations that trigger anxiety and stress. This is not about ‘fixing’ the anxiety but learning to welcome it as a source of vital communication

The following are some accessible videos to begin the exploration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br8-qebjIgs&t=1028s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX2iaC3etb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7zAseaIyFA

I would like to offer you a very practical, albeit highly challenging!, goal in terms of self-regulation and anxiety management:

To put aside 5 – 10 mins a day (or more if you are willing) to connect in with yourself and to have self-empathy for you. One exercise is to make a cup of tea / your favourite beverage at least once a day with an act of love and kindness and empathic regard and deep appreciation of yourself and all the ups and downs life has brought you on your journey. Can you hear yourself recoil or resist at the thoughts of this suggestion? Perhaps another way of looking at it is to consider – how can I have empathy for another person if I cannot walk in my own shoes and feel the impact of the path??!

A Psychosynthesis Psychological perspective

Working through the lens of the psychosynthesis therapeutic and coaching framework context at this time of Covid 19 pandemic has enabled me to locate the transformation process in the context of the person’s own interior resources. I have found myself treating the psychological dis-ease of Covid 19 in terms of a symptom of a deeper malaise at the heart and soul level of existential angst that emerges out of the shadows of core ways of being in the world. This includes our ways of relating to our loved ones, our lifestyle choices, our commitment to self-care, our willingness to develop an empathic, forgiving relationship with ourselves – yes, that cup of tea with an act of kindness for ourselves!

Many people share about deep feelings of shame and guilt at this time which when they slow down and feel the feelings and bring some understanding to what is happening for them, can see that they are self-monitoring in unhelpful ways. Essentially, the person as a child downloads a system of survival i.e. gaining acceptance and a sense of belonging as a child that needs an ‘upgrade’ now they are an adult. This same system has worked to a great extent, the person is functioning socially, so as not to throw the baby out with the bathwater but to upgrade or ‘tweak’ the system. It is indeed dangerous to put our finger in the proverbial fires of our day to day lives but if we happen to fall in this regard let us not berate ourselves. Instead, some of us need to learn how to (if self – criticism is our habit) to embrace our imperfections as we would a toddler who falls many times before they can walk. We need to learn to reach out and soothe our own woundedness. This is about developing the ability to welcome and receive the healing power of love and support from those we trust to hold us as we learn a new and more helpful way of thinking and behaving. This willingness to be vulnerable and visible in our vulnerability is our strength – our vulnerability (vulnere = open wound) as Leonard Cohen wrote – ‘ it is in crack that the light gets in’.

These cracks in our survival systems or opportunity for transformation that opens up in the various areas of our lives from time to time which prompt us to go on a steep but worthwhile learning curve. These are our attachment styles or the way we come close and come apart with our loved ones or significant others and stay connected in the dance of love. Or our patterns of behaviour where we react and act out our anger or hurt rather than to be proactive in our challenges. Or indeed our cycles of ‘rabbit hole’ thinking where we dig deep with the shovel of self-criticism to avoid being criticised by someone else and the shame we might feel as a result. Or where we become unhinged by our compulsions for status and power and our social obsession with what our ‘real’ or ‘virtual’ neighbours think of us.

All this psychological pressure we impose on ourselves trigger our anxiety and panic – fight/flight/freeze response which in turn re-enact the same cycles of self – abandonment.

Recovery in this context is about discovering the inner power of self-sovereignty where we step into our integrity. Coming to understand more and more how our will (the key expression of the self or who we truly are) gets ‘sabotaged’. By this, I mean how our sense of our inner strength gets diluted as we find ourselves going down many cul de sacs in the search for power and control, status and acceptance. Essentially out of the fear and dread of not being accepted and feeling abandoned or avoiding the shameful sense of rejection and feeling annihilated. In all of this struggle, it is important to find that oasis on a daily basis where we can sit by the pool of our own lives and bathe in its glory and wonder. Here is where the daily exercise, walks, workouts, meditation, mindfulness, prayer, nourishing foods, not least loving companionship provides the foundation bed of our wellbeing.

At this place of transformation, we can touch base with the drive-in us for moving beyond the restrictions of survival to embracing our potential for exponential thriving. This drive or calling that transpersonal psychology (which includes the spiritual, social, intellectual, emotional, physical and creative) claims we repress as we do our other unwanted drives for possession and power. Desoille called this the ‘repression of the sublime’. Perceived in this light, the horror of the anxious episode or panic attack becomes a crucial communication about our wellbeing, like the persistent fire alarm going off in the neighbourhood calling our attention and care. It’s a signal for some vital change in our lives – something to be embraced not shunned.

Coming into ‘new shores’ of 2020 vision

For some this has been the year where they experienced a 20/20 insight into their lives. Some report that they have got in touch with a deepening desire and experience an inner strength to ‘try out’ a different way of being in their roles in the family and in the workplace respectively. Be that being more visible in their need and vulnerability and asking for help; being less controlling and allowing the other partner to lead at times; to take time and slow down in their communications and listen with curiosity and openness to what the other has to say; to practice their own self-care so that they can reach out in a more real and authentic way in their families or at work.

For others in the cocooning of lockdown, they had a space to listen to the deeper stirring of the heart and reach out to old friends or loved ones either virtually or otherwise. For some, there was time and space to take down life-long dream projects off the shelf and experiment. Whether this is a musical instrument, painting, gardening, small business research, course etc. For some though the default of a closing business or job they have been prompted to begin a search that may or may not bring them to their desired pastures but nonetheless feel empowered in their willingness to try.

Before getting carried away by a utopic ending to what has been and continues to be for those especially in war-torn countries, an Orwellian dystopia come true, we need to include in this narrative: the situations where people are finding themselves in dire need in terms of holding down a mortgage and putting food on the table; refugee shelters where there is not enough space to social distance; hostel accommodation which is already taxed to facilitate those without shelter not to mind providing safe shelter in accordance with covid guidelines; individuals with special needs either mental or physical, whose symptoms are escalated under the restrictions and guidelines of Covid procedures and protocol, and many more such cases of vulnerability. Here the call to sovereignty is at the collective social level.

I would suggest we are invited at this point to become with our voices, a protective force field around our vulnerable brothers and sisters. We need to challenge any trace of dis-ease of social moral conscience that induces us to go unconscious/shirk social responsibility at the level of the civilian, government, church or financial institution.

Even in all the spinning out that has happened at an individual, family and societal level there has been a heightening of ethical consciousness. At a social level, we got to see some of the elements of our lived experience that are dispensable and potentially harmful about the ‘old normal’ that we had accepted with the mindlessness of the proverbial child in a sweet shop. As at all the watersheds in the process of human evolution, there has been I believe, an awakening of the adult social mind that has the ability and response-ability to reflect. We are seeing a boost in eco-consciousness or the awakening from decades of sleep or going unconscious to the call to graduate the next stage of human evolution – where the welfare of human and all life on our planet is in the first place and the willingness to embrace personal and social responsibility and share the sacrifice around that is nurtured.

Roberto Assagioli – a pioneer of the humanistic and transpersonal movement and founder of psychosynthesis highlighted that alongside working at integrating our lower unconscious drive for power and possession, we need to include the higher unconscious drives for beauty and truth. These ‘higher potentialities which seek to express themselves, but which we often repel and repress” became very visible in acts of altruism of the Covid 19 trauma. This dimension of human consciousness was manifest in the agape love which characterised the service of frontline staff and volunteers across the extensive range of public and private sector and at the localised level of family-supportive systems around suffering loved ones. The signage on the motorway that advised ‘stay at home, we are in this together’, was given context in a manifestation of community spirit that had not presented itself in quite some time. In the darkest moments of the pandemic, the social self-regulatory function manifested through song on balconies, shopping for a neighbour, inter-religious celebration, virtual coffee mornings, fundraising.

Frank Haronian in, ‘The repression of the sublime’, says that we often fear the challenge of personal growth and avoid taking responsibility for our lives because it means abandoning the familiar and the known which results in feeling anxious. This includes the fear of one’s own greatness prompting us out of the comfort of limiting self-belief systems of survival which maintain the status quo in our lives. This repression can be applied also at the collective social level.

The Social challenge

The fabric of social norms and mores has been ruptured in past months and out of the void has erupted a kaleidoscope of human reaction and response. The primal scream of conscience that etches a boundary in the halls of social acceptability heightened as the social system progressively organised itself around distance, sanitisation, crowd control, infection control, isolation, quarantine.

At times and especially at the height of the Covid 19 outbreak, an unrelenting social media campaign prompted by government and WHO directives presented a fear-based narrative. This communication seemed to exclude the human person as a thinking, loving, meaning-making, resilient, spiritual, biological system whose immunity is boosted by Vitamins, natural remedies, self-care, spiritual and religious practices. One can argue that this propaganda bias was in service of protecting the vulnerable from the mindlessness and self-abandoning behaviour of a certain cohort of the population who resisted the relinquishing of the ‘old normal’. Those who hold the reactive impulse of group consciousness or the archetypal adolescent (and not necessarily the adolescent cohort!) protective response to the imposition of an authoritarian style of leadership.

Others then have taken to the streets to make visible their discontent about regulatory updates being issued from what they perceive as a mindless think tank that is imposing ad hoc and non-scientific based restrictions that do not factor in the long-term effects on the business sector.

However no matter how fraught, as part of this emerging social tapestry, the ‘new norm’ is indeed forming and as it embeds, schools, workplaces, churches, recreational areas, social venues, are seeing a high level of conformity with a spirit of collaboration and co-responsibility from all age groups.

The call now is to maintain this momentum of self-sacrifice of past months and to resist the pull to entropy or the natural regressive impulse in human nature at the sight of great achievement – the proverbial one step forward out of our self-protective comfort zones that are followed by the two steps back i.e. the repression of these higher and spiritual impulses of community, service, wisdom, love, compassion, empathy.

References

• Roger Evans, 5DL Five Dimensions of Leadership, Independently Published, March 2020

Bibliography

Roberto Assagioli, The Act of Will: A Guide to Self-Actualisation and Self-Realisation (London, UK: The Psychosynthesis and Education Trust, 2002

Deb Dana, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices. Norton & Co. New York, 2020

Roger Evans, 5DL Leadership, uncovering the DNA of Leadership. CLC Publishing, 2019

Piero Ferrucci, What We May Be. Tarcher/Putnam, 1982

John Firman & Ann Gila, A Psychotherapy of Love, A Psychosynthesis in Practice. SUNY Press, 2012

Firman & A. Gila, The Primal Wound: A transpersonal view of trauma, addiction, and growth. SUNY Press, 1997

Frank Haronian, The repression of the sublime, Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, 1967

Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. North Atlantic Books, 1997

Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. Norton & Co, New York /London, 2011