In Tim Winton’s autobiographical book The Boy Behind the Curtain, he describes, as a nine-year-old, being in a car with his father one night when they came upon a motorcycle accident. His father was a police officer, a ‘traffic cop’, and Tim describes the memory of how ‘businesslike’ his father was, how ‘calm and unhurried’ he was in coping with the situation.
This is generally the way we experience all emergency service workers approaching their jobs. There’s none of the ‘panic-tinged’ drama we see in the movies. Rather, there’s a trained acceptance that whatever caused the emergency has already happened. They have no control over that. It can’t be undone. What can be controlled is their response to the situation, which is to methodically apply their professional knowledge and provide help to those who need it.
If we’re honest, I suspect the rest of us, mostly untrained and unprepared for dealing with dire situations, don’t really know how we would respond to them, unless we’ve had to do so.
However, there is a parallel here with the way in which we cope with all that is going on in the world at this time.
While the pandemic no longer dominates our lives, every time we look at the news we are greeted with a stream of other grim stories, from war to environmental disasters to inflation … the list goes on.
It is very easy to be left with feelings of hopelessness, of not being able to step out of the chaos. We see this manifest itself, unfortunately, in increasing levels of underlying anger in the wider community. We see it in the prevalence of signs appealing for customer service staff and hospitality workers to be treated with respect – something that used to go without saying.
What are we to do?
What we know through our work is that it is important to distinguish ‘finding a way forward’ from ‘finding a solution’ to all that is going on.
Like the emergency worker, we need to be able to acknowledge that many of the problems in the world are likely to be completely out of our control as individuals. In some cases, acknowledging this fact may be all we can do. At other times, having made this acknowledgement, we may be able to identify small things within our control that we can do.
Improving our level of emotional health is critical here. In our book Working with Emotional Health and the Enneagram, we define emotional health as ‘a state of enhanced wellbeing created through highly conscious choices, mindful practices and respectful relationships’.
As we increase our level of emotional health, we become less self-centred and have a higher degree of behavioural freedom. We improve our ability to choose our response to unexpected or challenging situations, and are less inclined to react to such situations impulsively. Instead of wallowing in blame, defensiveness, denial or justification, we operate ‘above the line’, taking personal responsibility for the way we choose to act.
Whilst improving our emotional health doesn’t happen overnight, there are things we can do immediately that will start us on this path.
The simple act of taking a few minutes to sit with a message that enables you to be present, to be calm, to occupy a space of ‘what is possible here?’ as opposed to what is impossible. This can alter your perspective and help you find a way forward.
Asking ‘What am I feeling and noticing in myself and others?’ enables us to look at what we are experiencing with more clarity and to recognise our own feelings as well as what might be happening to others.
We are not suggesting you will create miracles as a result. It may start with just offering someone else the opportunity to share how they are feeling, or simply being kind to your neighbours. The small stuff matters. Or it might help you realise some more significant contribution you can make.
If we are only focused on all the things going wrong, that’s all we’ll see. If we give ourselves the freedom to look beyond that, to understand what we can control and to do what we can in a ‘calm and unhurried’ way, we will improve our own wellbeing and have a positive impact on those around us.
Our Mastering Emotional Health app can help start you on this journey. You will be introduced to 21 ways of improving your emotional health and enhancing your wellbeing. Each of the 21 sessions includes an introduction and illustration, plus a meditation and recreation. The app won’t solve the situations we find ourselves in in today’s world, however it can provide you with a support – something to build on. We encourage you to try it.
Gayle
