Health & Wellbeing: Blogging Through COVID Together — Moving to the Next Phase

May 19, 2020

We are ready for the next step of learning through a global pandemic and here is the best part, you get to decide!

One thing about this whole crisis, is that we have all been living with many more directives than we are used to and a whole lot less freedom. Who would have believed that the government would be telling us when and if we can get haircuts, where and when we can travel and who we can hug for goodness sake! But they did and we were, for the most part anyway, grateful that they did.

As much as we continue to shake our heads about how strange and previously unimaginable some of these restrictions have been, our communities have been amazing! We have done what people often do in crisis and have come together in the most beautiful and connected ways. We supported each other, we were grateful that we were being taken care of by our leaders and we all had a part to play. Those of us at home were cheering for the frontline workers and they in turn were grateful to us for staying home. For the most part everyone had an important role and even if we didn’t like all the rules, they were clear, they were important, and we followed them.

So now the next phase begins, and we will have more decisions to make. Everyone will have slightly different needs, situations, and levels of comfort. We will make different choices and that needs to be okay.

As we head back to partial in class learning, there will be many that will be excited and eager to head back and there will be others that will be quite happy to continue remote learning at home, and a whole bunch of us somewhere in between. No matter where you are on that continuum, if that is the best decision for your family then that is the right place to be. Others will be in different spots and that is also okay. The basic health and safety rules are still in place for everyone so as long as we are all following these, we don’t need to make the same decision as our neighbours.

I hope and expect that we will continue to support each other even if it may be tempting to convince others to think the way we do. I can already hear my husband laughing and he will have a very difficult time trying not to remind me to practice what I preach as I am often trying to convince him why my way of seeing the world is clearly the right way. In my own defence, I think this is a natural human tendency particularly when we are feeling uncomfortable because convincing others that the decision, we are making is the right one, helps us feel more in control. Here is a short, funny clip that explains this tendency well:  Brene Brown on Blame

What we need right now is to remind ourselves and each other that we are still in this together even though we are doing things differently. As members of a community the choices we make impact each other so we need to continue with open communication and encourage the support and connection we have already established.

Let’s continue to support each other as the world and our education system starts opening up and we are trying out new ways of working together.  Just like in the earlier phases, we will not be perfect but if we continue to support each other we will stay both physically and emotionally safer and that is what we need and want for everyone.