Reflections on Coronavirus Part 11

In the eleventh week of the 'Making Sense: Understanding the Meaning We See in the COVID-19 Pandemic' supervision conversations, we have continued to explore our experiences and perceptions of the world around us. As in previous weeks, this discussion was a free flowing conversation between between coaches and consultants, and the summary below attempts to capture the themes. Some of the group had attended calls before, with one person attending for the fifth time, and for others it was the fist time. People dialled in from Spain, Germany, Dubai and the United Kingdom.

The call began with a sense of disorientation and confusion. I had forgotten to send the link until the last minute and perhaps linked to this, one participant did not attend. Another was late for personal reasons, and as we began introductions, I was interrupted by an urgent request from a builder working on my house. As we eventually settled into the call, this theme continued.

We opened the discussion with a shared sense that something new was emerging. We described a feeling of reflection and thoughtfulness that was now giving way to the possibility of action, which was received with ambiguous and conflicting emotions. Some described a clarity emerging, where the next steps were becoming obvious, but also a sense of disconnection, where there was little energy or engagement with taking those steps. They felt 'drained and lethargic'. They did not feel 'depressed' but lacked excitement and felt they could not 'really be bothered'. Others described a wealth of ideas and possibilities that they were unable to make sense of, and using the metaphor of the sea, described an open space ahead that had many possible directions but no clear paths. Again, there was a sense of pointlessness and of 'not being able to get anywhere in my lifetime': The first steps felt like 'really hard work'. It felt as though the uncertainty and strangeness of the world that was now beginning to emerge was overwhelming. There was a sense of waiting and wanting to move again, while being unclear about how or where: How do we begin to orient ourselves and what 'compass' do we use? We discussed both the practical concerns of work, and the more existential concerns of purpose and purposelessness.

We sat in silence for what felt like a long time.

The silence was broken with an association to the emergence from the last war in Europe, and we wondered about the confusion that accompanied that. Despite the level of destruction, people knew that the world would be rebuilt and yet still had to face the immediacy of survival in that world. Now as then, it did not feel as though there were enough resources to sustain us, and there was a lack of confidence that governments would be able to provide. We reflected on the need for personal resourcefulness and finding our own way, perhaps with the support of our immediate communities.

Some saw examples from governments that give them hope, mentioning Raworth's 'doughnut model' now being developed in Amsterdam, which proposes a balance between the minimum needs of a communities citizens and the needs of long term sustainability. Others felt more ambivalent, hoping that something positive will emerge but seeing a more negative potential as well. We considered the challenges being faced by our leaders, wondering what sense they were making of the world amidst an avalanche of contradictory information. We returned to the metaphor of the sea, suggesting that our leaders also have nothing to hold onto and that it will take courage to take a stance. We wondered whether the stance some leaders take would be the wrong one, taking us backwards or in a destructive direction that their followers would then emulate. We wondered about narcissism and the shadow of leadership, and the differences between leaders who may be trying to stand on the same platform: How much airtime do we give to these leaders and are all points of view equal? Which leaders are simply acting out and which leaders offer a path worth following?

We agreed that people seemed to be looking for meaning, and wondered whether those leaders now 'flooding us with ideas' are just expressing their own way of making meaning as a route through their own anxiety.

We seemed to agree that these questions made the personal accountability for the choices we make, more important. One participant suggested that as a result of the noise online predicting the 'new normal', they felt that their own skill at 'discernment' had increased and they had begun to notice who and what they were noticing.

'As a coach I didn’t pay attention to any coaches, as I didn’t think they had anything to say. I want to be clear about, not just about who I am and what I want, but around who I want to listen to and give my time and attention to. Now the world is opening up again I have no interest in this bullshit. I would rather stay in lockdown. I have gone on LinkedIn and it feels so dull. Even the word organisation makes me want to vomit. These concepts have no meaning for me even though they are real in the world I am in. It has become even less meaningful that it was before pandemic. I dont know how to meet the world again. Even the new world. I am not convinced it is all that new'.

Other participants described a sense of validation, now that their intuition about the 'corruption' and 'bullshit' of their societies was being exposed. They described a feeling of liberation, but this seemed to be of little comfort. We wondered how can we find meaning in something that is completely undefined and consider that perhaps, if we can't define meaning we may at least be able to define a way to approach that unstructured territory. We agreed that that is unlikely to be provided for us in simple 'formulae', and we may need to find it for ourselves.

I then wondered about the theme of liminal space from the previous weeks, and introduced Jung's alchemical analogy, describing the phases of psychological transformation and development. We begin with a phase of separation, described as the blackening or 'nigredo'. This is the 'dark night of the soul', where the old is burnt away and new possibilities begin to surface. This leads to a phase of consolidation, described as the whitening or 'albedo' and often referred to as 'the womb in the tomb'. This is the moment of dawn, when we know what we are not, but we are not yet sure what we are becoming. This is a time of ghosts, where we come to terms with what we are losing, and wait patiently for what is next. Finally we experience a phase of growth and realisation, described as the reddening or 'rubedo' where the new world is revealed to us by the rising sun. This path suggests that change requires us to experience the pain of separation and accept the fear of the unknown. We cannot look for something we cannot imagine, and must allow it to emerge with patience.

This prompted a discussion about the heroic journey, and the tacit assumption that we are the central character; the conquering hero. We wondered whether we could simply be one of the other characters. We reflected on the absence of stories where the protagonist just dies and is forgotten. We wondered why we were so focused on the idea of winning and losing. When we confront the idea that we all die in the end, we must ask whether this is because we have somehow failed, or whether this is just the reality of nature.

This led us to consider death itself and the value of life during the pandemic. One participant was struck by a categorisation they had seen, where people were grouped together as 'over 65s', with the inference that death was somehow more acceptable for them, simply because they are old. We wondered whether it was possible to compare life in economic terms and whether this division of old and young was simply a displacement of our own fear: 'I struggle with the idea of death, but if I can't face it and have some peace and acceptance then it becomes a concept I can avoid or displace in others'. 

We discussed how people were dying alone without their loved ones around them, and whether history will look back on this time with shame? We reflected on what it is that we value in life and what it may mean to 'die well': 'Is my life good just because I have lived to 85'? We wondered whether dying a 'good death' is less about the end of life, and more about the fear of chaos and having a thread to hold onto.

I was reminded of the work of Arthur W. Frank, who researched the stories told by patients in a hospice. He suggested that they told three sorts of narratives; the Restitution Narrative, where the doctors would save them and life would return to normal; the Chaos Narrative where the world seemed dangerous and uncertain with no clear path ahead; and the Quest Narrative, where people found a sense of purpose even in death which gave them a sense that they were not dying for no reason. I wondered what stories people were telling themselves now.

We concluded by reflecting on death as an archetype. When we consider death may also be a loss of the stories we tell ourselves to remind ourselves of who we are, we can appreciate why we may feel overwhelmed by the change we are now experiencing.

We can easily underestimate how hard it is to move on.

The conversation will continue next week....

References

Frank, A.W. (1995) The Wounded Storyteller. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press

Jung, C.G. (1969) The Psychology of the Transference. London: Routledge

Raworth, K. (2018) Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. London: RH Business Books