The Great Pause

The Pandemic: A Time for Resilience and Compassion

By Christine Griffin, Washington H&V

When the pandemic hit our shores, we were anything but prepared. The busyness of our daily lives that conditioned us into a false sense of comfort came to an abrupt halt sending a shockwave through the entire world. The inertia was overwhelming as we tuned in with disbelief to daily news programs and social media.

For me personally, this meant my much-anticipated travel plans to the annual national EHDI conference were canceled less than 8 hours from boarding the plane. As stay-at-home mandates followed, I soon began experiencing strange dreams and waves of emotions, sleeplessness, and crankiness. It was soon apparent that despite my best efforts to stay positive, what I was really experiencing was grief.

In his book, Unattended Sorrow, Stephen Levine wrote, “Loss is the absence of something we were once attached to. Grief, is the rope burns left behind, when that which is held is pulled beyond our grasp.” The feeling of grief and other emotions that accompany it such as fear, anxiety, loneliness, stress, and uncertainty is felt in our body as a threat. When human beings are faced with a threat, we naturally turn our energy to survival. Instantly, we can become hyper focused on our body (am I okay?), our environment (what can I control?) and time (how long will this last?). When this happens, our limbic system in the brain kicks into full throttle engaging our fight-or-flight responses and affecting our whole body.

In more scientific terms our amygdala hijacks control of our response to stress. The amygdala diverts blood supply to the frontal lobesand activates the fight-or-flight (or freeze) response. Without the frontal lobes, we can’t think clearly, be creative, make rational decisions, or control our responses. The amygdala serves to give us physical strength and speed when needed but gets in the way of higher-level thinking when a threat is perceived that doesn’t require swift action.

Simply put, we can’t feel fear and be calm at the same time. That would be like expecting ourselves to swim and ride a bicycle at the same time–it isn’t humanly possible. These two states of being live within separate parts of our brain. If we remain in a prolonged state of fight-or-flight, there is danger that the stress can create long lasting trauma.

The good news is we can shift our fear-based and over-reactive thinking by implementing simple strategies. If our fears can affect our body, then so can forming positive thoughts and emotions. This is called resiliency—the ability to recover from or adjust to misfortune or change.

Here are some strategies parents have implemented to help their families to feel more secure and build resilience.

1. Teacher and parent Diana Fitzgerald uses “Zones of Regulation” in her classroom and at home.In the Zones of Regulation, there are 4 different zones: The Blue Zone (Moving Slowly), Green Zone (Ready to Learn), Yellow Zone (Loss of some Control) and Red Zone (Out of Control). (See diagram for more detail.) “This gives us a common language around our feelings and emotional needs. It is simple to understand and is very visual. Every member of our family checks in multiple times a day with each other and tells what ‘zone’ we are in. If we are not in the green zone we talk about why and what we can do to get back to the green zone.” remarks Fitzgerald.
2. Another practical idea Fitzgerald use is a “Peace Center” in their home. “The ‘Peace Center’ is a basket placed in a quiet area for times we are in the red or yellow zone. The kids made a list of calming strategies that include breathing exercises and other methods that work for them to self-soothe. The basket also contains tactile and visual aids that the kids selected ahead of time. Activities like a Rubik’s Cube, slime, baby pictures and a stuffed animal that capture the kids’ attention rotate with others to keep the ideas fresh and interesting.”
3. Furthermore, Fitzgerald adds, “There is no shame in using the ‘Peace Center.’ As parents we both frequent it as well. When people self-select the Peace Center to regulate their emotions it is celebrated as a responsible and mature way to care for oneself and show love for self and others.”
4. Another parent, Laura Gramer, likes to use water beads as a tactile and soothing activity. These are small gelatin like beads that when wet grow larger. The kids use water beads to fill water balloons to create stress balls. Their family also uses movies, like Disney’s “In and Out” to help start a discussion about identifying how they have been feeling. Even identifying a feeling within the context of loving relationships can help the feeling-state begin to diminish.

Lastly, cultivating heartfelt positive emotions such as gratitude, joy, excitement, enthusiasm, fascination, awe, trust, inspiration, appreciation, kindness, compassion and empowerment can nourish and enhance our sense of healing even further. By focusing on things that help us to feel joy or gratitude, we engage the neocortex–the thinking part of our brain.

A few fun activities that help us do this are picturing for ourselves and asking our kids to imagine a nearly perfect day, what would you be doing? Who would be with you? Would you be eating anything special? How would you be feeling? Another version of this activity is to make a routine of asking family members at the end of the day what their favorite part of the day was for them or what they were most grateful for today. These activities are sure to grow connection and generate a smile or two as you close out your day.

In this time of the great pause, we have within our power to care for ourselves and support one another through grace and compassion. By learning about the limbic system and how it functions in our brain, we can become more self-aware of how emotions impact our experiences and implement strategies that build resiliency for ourselves and our children. It’s understandable during crises to feel fearful at times, but other emotions like joy, enthusiasm and inspiration are also within our power to experience. Like any skill, we have to focus on nurturing it for the skill to grow.   ~

Resources: Zones of Regulation:  http://www.zonesofregulation.com/index.html

H&V Communicator – Summer 2020