This week Ramón Chaparro, bi-lingual therapist, shares some thoughts on how we may be experiencing things in this season that are akin to culture shock.
Questions for personal reflection or (preferably) discussion with someone else...
•When we are walking through our “familiar” lives it requires much less energy than what we are experiencing now. What do you think of Ramón’s framing of our new Covid reality as a form of culture shock?
•Ramón says that stress happens when what our environment demands exceeds our ability and our resources to meet them. What aspects of our current shift is reality are most stressful or “shocking” to your system?
•The good news is that we are designed to grow and adapt and meet the demands of our environment. How does it feel to hear Ramón say, “You got this”? Where have you seen this growth and resilience in your life before this current crisis?
•Ramón describes the four stages of culture shock: honeymoon, frustration, adjustment, acceptance. Where do you find yourself in these stages? Where have you already seen yourself grow, learn, and adapt in this season?
•Shifts in our identity can be disorienting. Have you experienced identity shifts in the last few weeks? In what ways? •Do you notice changes in your body when you feel stress levels building? What kind of things happen in your body when you are stressed? How do you know you've reached your limit? If you’ve never noticed are you willing to try the exercise Ramón describes in the video (@24:00) sometime this week?
•What are things in your life that feel familiar that you could build into your new normal with Covid? Ramón uses the example of still packing a backpack for home school. What are some simple things feel familiar for you or your household that you could still do?
•We would encourage you to sit with Ramón’s closing thoughts today and revisit them throughout the week:
“The Covid pandemic is reality for us right now and we have to find the ways to be in that reality. I don’t think that means watching the news about Covid 24-7, please don’t do that. But it does mean figuring out what does it mean to live in this new normal… You got this. You were made to do this. We, as humanity, are made to do this… Something that connects us is that all of us were made to respond to the demands of the environment by growing because humans are growing creatures.”
