I don’t normally write political posts, but I’m inclined to talk about politics at the moment. Of course, Brexit is much more then politics, but it’s often presented to us through the lens of politics, for better or for worse.
So, I’ve been studying child development recently and in particularly ‘the adaptive process’ that we are all capable of, but that we can also get stuck with. Quite often whilst studying I’ll find myself thinking of children that I know, but this time I was drawn to Brexit and how this might play out on a more macro level.
What was Brexit? To keep things simple, let’s assume that as a nation we became frustrated with the EU and decided that it was time to leave. We perceived that the EU wasn’t working for us and so it was time to leave. The definition of frustration is when you experience something that doesn’t work. Frustration is something that all mammals experience, but as humans we are more capable of enacting change in various forms. To summarise simply, we were experiencing frustration and one of the manifestations of this was Brexit.
The result of the vote meant that as a nation, most of us were frustrated on some level. The people that voted to leave were frustrated because the EU wasn’t working for them and the people that didn't want to leave were frustrated because they were getting something that they didn’t want and couldn’t change it. Most people entered ‘the frustration’ roundabout as illustrated below:
This will all become real in 2021 and we will start to experience these changes more directly, they will be less perceived and more real. Having said that, we are all susceptible to being biased and so some of us might perceive change for the better, some for the worse and some of us might not really notice much at all. This has been such an emotive process that we will all likely be sensitive to this change and we will keep on experiencing frustration. If the change is real to us then that frustration might get released. One way to think of emotions is that they are like bowel movements. They just simply have to come out somewhere. If no change is perceived or if, in fact, things get worse for some of us then we are back on the roundabout.
If we can’t change something the next thing we experience is futility. The definition of futility is that you are up against something that you cannot change. It’s a word that doesn’t often get used these days, maybe because we’ve lost the importance of it. Now here is where it gets interesting to bring it back to child development.
Experiencing futility is absolutely vital to child development. If futility is not felt when it is encountered, if we become defended against it, if we lose our tears so to speak then we will remain stuck on this roundabout and the next stop is attacking energy. When experienced and futility is registered emotionally, then this frustration is let out here. It’s from this place that we develop qualities like: resourcefulness, resilience and recovery. Without futility registering emotionally we simply will not develop in this way and the next stop is experiencing this frustration turn into more of an attacking energy.
Think of a child that you know and a time when they got frustrated. For example, my daughter wants a biscuit, but her brother takes the biscuit off her. She tries to get it off him but she can’t and the biscuit breaks (she wasn’t able to enact change), she doesn’t move to sadness and tears straight away, but she lashes out and hits him (frustration comes out in attacking energy). One of my roles as a parent is to provide space for her to explore strategies for how she can change what she is doing. Another role is to draw out and create a safe space for this sadness. If I would have noticed as this was happening I might have been able to connect with her in the moment and as I attune to her she may be able to move to tears with me holding her.
There are some some things you just can’t change. She isn’t allowed to eat chocolate for dinner. She isn’t allowed to buy all the toys in the shop. In these cases my job is to provide a safe space for her to encounter this futility and find her tears. Dr Neufeld describes this as being ‘the angel of comfort’ so that it is easier to access this sadness. In that way it’s going to allow her resourcefulness, resilience and recovery to develop spontaneously and naturally as she experiences life and all that comes with it. Notice I’m not teaching these things to her directly (that never works) I’m just creating the environment for those fruits to grow within her. These fruits do not grow without us experiencing and feeling futility. And as children, if we don’t have a safe space to experience this futility then you become defended against it and you might end up moving to aggression instead of tears.
So, Brexit. Where are we all on this roundabout in terms of Brexit. I’m no detective but I’d guess that we’ve all felt the frustration over the last four years, so we would have all entered the roundabout. We might still be playing around with change, seeing what we can do, making plans etc. and I’m not going to suggest we stop doing those things. But do you notice any attacking energy coming out of you? I invite you to get curious. Do you find yourself stuck on this roundabout? Are we stuck on this roundabout as a society?
If so, then we are going to miss out on these three fruits: resourcefulness, resilience and recovery. However you perceive Brexit. Whether it’s an opportunity that we can take advantage of, or it’s something that we are going to have to deal with. So I invite you to get curious and ask yourself if you’ve experienced futility yet over Brexit? For children we say, ‘have they moved from mad to sad?’ So have you moved from mad to sad? And if you haven’t, then can you recognise the stuckness? How can you draw the sadness out of you? Watching films, listening to music, talking to someone. There is no right or wrong way to do it, but it is a process that we are all going to need to go through in order to access these fruits. How can we draw the sadness out of us as a society?
Because with everything going on around us we are going to need these fruits this year both as individuals and a society.
If you want to find out more about my work with parents and as a therapist feel free to contact me at mail@joeatkinson.co.uk
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and HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!