How to stop judging those whose response to quarantine is different from ours

Looking at the street from the window of our own apartment, we see those who for some reason left the house. We don’t know anything about the people who right now are walking, running and walking with strollers under our windows, but we are ready to immediately condemn them: how annoying it is when someone doesn’t follow the rules, when you yourself take their implementation extremely seriously!

We can discuss “violators” with households for a long time, but why do we do this? Focusing on the negative is an evolutionary skill, says relationship psychologist Jill Weber.

The ability to see what seems dangerous and unacceptable, and focus on it, helped a person to anticipate potentially dangerous situations – and thus increase their chances of survival. At the same time, anger and irritation towards those who behave differently than we do help us to elevate ourselves above others, to feel that we are strong and wise. This is how we mask our own vulnerability.

We are not at all sure of the future. When will the isolation end? What will happen to those who become infected with the coronavirus? How will quarantine affect the economy? Will we keep our jobs? Can we find a new one? Thinking about it is disturbing and scary. By judging others, we turn away from our own anxiety. Thinking in the “us versus them” paradigm, we hide behind a fence invisible to the eye – and we feel more and more lonely …

The tasks that this strange time sets before us are very contradictory, explains Jill Weber. On the one hand, ideally we need to spend as much time as possible in our apartments and houses. On the other hand, we want to stay in touch with those we love. And for some, both the first and the second work out well, while for others this “quest” is extremely difficult. Isolation combined with anxiety is a dangerous cocktail.

So far, none of the ways to deal with the pandemic has proven to be optimal. We can only follow the recommendations of the WHO, hope for the best and not forget about the humane attitude towards others, even if they do not behave the way we would like.

Jill Weber offers five steps to help us stop judging others and love those around us again.

1. Recognize: we are all great fellows!

If we had been told a month ago that a little more – and shops and cafes would stop working in our cities, children would start studying remotely, and our bedrooms would turn into offices, we simply would not have believed it. And yet it is so. It is amazing what society is capable of in the face of danger, and everyone deserves praise for cohesion, flexibility, reliability and responsibility.

2. Understand: we are all very worried

Each of us has lost something due to the coronavirus and quarantine. Someone’s plans for the summer were upset, someone lost their job, someone generally lost a stable idea of ​​themselves and the world around them. We mourn, but our “mourning schedules” don’t necessarily match!

While one denies reality, the other is bargaining with the universe. Someone is stuck in the stage of anger, and someone has already accepted the situation and began to act.

There is no single right path and no single right amount of time in which we must recover. The brain of each of us chooses its own way to adapt to what is happening. How quickly this will happen, no one knows, but judging others for the fact that their reality does not match yours is simply pointless. Give both relatives and strangers time: this is their path, their experiences and their responsibility.

3. Accept your negative feelings

Avoiding your anger, rage, confusion, not recognizing your fear is more dangerous today than ever. Attentive attitude to emotions, the ability to recognize them will reduce our suffering.

Try to become curious, ask yourself: what new experience am I getting here and now? Realizing that each of us is vulnerable will ultimately bring us relief: in this way, we release forces within ourselves that were previously wasted on holding back negative experiences.

How to use these powers? To accept reality with all its limitations and peculiarities means to stop being distracted by what others are doing and to focus on ourselves, to be here and now.

4. Communicate with those whose point of view is different from yours

Being in isolation, we seem to forget that the world around us and the people who inhabit it are different. We now have very little information about others and their motives. We observe what is happening from the outside and draw conclusions based solely on our own beliefs and ideas about how things should be.

And therefore, if it seems to you that those around you are not behaving as they should, try to guess why they do it without immediately stigmatizing them for it. An honest conversation will help to come to an agreement or at least an understanding. But our guesses about what makes people act one way or another may, firstly, have nothing to do with the truth, and secondly, make us angry at those who may not deserve it at all.

5. Remember: we are all in the same boat

Isolation, the need to keep a distance, the inability to entertain ourselves in the usual ways affect everyone: both us and our children, and those with whom we do not know at all.

We cannot predict how all this will affect our psyche – we can only observe. But we certainly won’t be the same. And everyone will have to deal with the crisis in their own way.

Therefore, tolerance and compassion are as important to us today as sanitizers and medical masks. The ability to put yourself in the place of another and not judge him will ultimately help us keep our psyche in order – as much as possible.

About the Author: Jill Weber is a clinical psychologist and relationship specialist.