People are scared, and people are scary

I heard the title of this article from a person I happened to meet when I was in Germany a few weeks ago at a Gestalt research conference. I’d asked him how it was for him in Germany these days.

People are scared and people are scary. When I began to think about it, what he said really sums up the polarization that’s happening everywhere. We were forced to isolate for 2 years – totally against our social nature, then we had to find a way to somehow get back to normal.

But, have you noticed what happens when you isolate? What happens is we lose our connection to others. We begin to get suspicious of anyone outside our small circle. Then we separate from each other even more.

I think that’s what he was referring to. Everyone’s scared – of the war started by Putin against the Ukraine, of the fractioning and hatred forming in the United States, of the autocracies popping up in different countries around the world. That’s on the global front. On a more personal scale, fear of others, anxiety about trying new things and meeting new people, not trusting anyone except a few close friends. We end up relying on those few friends too much and it becomes a burden to them.

It’s hard to know what to do to stop this growing disconnection between us. It’s such an important topic that I’ve written about before (see my earlier post The Walls We Build  for ways to begin to heal this disconnection). It might be to go at it slowly, step by step. For instance, deliberately go to some community event with the objective of having one or 2 brief light conversations with a few people who are there.

If you do this or something like it, notice how you feel afterwards – lighter? More hopeful? More trusting?

Possibly so.

Quote of the Week

“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
― John Powell

 

This could be why you’re depressed or anxious