Today we find ourselves in a strange new reality, full of uncertainty and new obligations both personal and professional. This global pandemic has plunged us into a situation where we must rethink our most fundamental reflexes and habits, both as individuals and collectively as a society. As always in times of adversity, the ability to adapt is key.
Looking ahead to the post-Covid-19 world, we can already sense that many of our old working habits will need to be modified, from the handshake to more deeper considerations of how we perceive and interact with the world. But one essential element of our human nature that has not lost its importance during this time is our benevolence – toward ourselves, our families, our colleagues and society.
Benevolence involves staying focused on the human element of any situation, without judgement and with the goal of fostering a sense of confidence in our relationships. Benevolence is being proactive and authentic in what we do and doing our best to look at life in a constructive way. It means actively making yourself available for yourself and for others.
Benevolence toward oneself
Being benevolent with yourself involves accepting the impermanent nature of life and shaping your reactions, emotions and thought processes around this fact. Benevolence also means being patient with yourself as you navigate an unknown terrain and to dare to allow yourself to not be perfect! More than anything, it involves exploring your own internal strengths and resources – a process that can kick off a journey to unexpected discoveries.
It’s natural during this unprecedented time to feel at turns anxious, stressed, lonely or frustrated. Being benevolent with yourself also means not ignoring these emotions or trying to replace them with a delusional optimism. Rather, you need to accept these emotions and integrate them. It can be helpful to name the emotion or thought you’re having, without taking ownership of it. For example: “I’m aware that I feel anguished” rather than “I am anguished.” One of the best ways to deal with these feelings is to try to learn from them: “What is this situation teaching me about what is truly important to me?”
Benevolence toward others
This involves refreshing your approach to engaging with others with the goal of better understanding them and their situation. Try to be empathetic and serene, since those are the only areas in which we have any control.
For example, in the context of working from home, perhaps you feel frustration when your supervisor doesn’t get back to you by 12pm and you’ve been trying to reach them since 9am. Reacting, questioning oneself, and feeling certain emotions is normal, but being benevolent means keeping in mind that your supervisor has two young children at home: perhaps he took the morning to speak with them because they were acting out and displaying signs of anxiety.
What does this say about your supervisor’s needs, priorities and values? What can you learn from them and apply to yourself? What does the situation say about your need to be proactive, to be listened to? Being benevolent with others means understanding that situations and basic needs vary from one person to another, both at work and outside of it.
Avoid emotional contagion
Despite the fact that we are keeping more than an arm’s length away from each other in these times, we remain connected, even at an international level. Whether during discussions with friends or as we read the daily newsfeed, we’re not immune to the contagion of anxiety, which can have a deleterious effect on our own fragile emotional state in this situation. Being benevolent with yourself also means paying close attention to your inner voice to identify negative reactions and to draw limits for yourself – again, the only things we have control over. It’s about taking back responsibility for yourself, because after all, we are the only ones we control in this life!
By Marie-Noëlle De Sève, orientation counselor and Éric Damato, organizational orientation counselor, partner and head of agility at BrissonLegris
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