Useful Coronavirus Emotional Awareness Activities to Support Individuals and Groups During Disruptive Change

It is inevitable that change will include emotional and relational impact. The most common emotional reactions to disruptive change are: fight, flight, freeze and falling back on established habits. Some habits may continue to serve, but change will render others redundant. Fight, flight and freeze are accompanied by emotions like fear, conflict, resistance and anxiety. These reactions can lead to resistance to change, clouded judgment, ill-informed decision making, conservatism, reduced performance, the disintegration of relationships and failure. Not addressing the emotional impact of change is likely to exacerbate negative reactions and their consequences.

How can we address the emotional and relational impact of change? Below I would like to offer you two practical activities that are based on the Praxis for Change. The first is a group activity designed to raise awareness of the emotional impact of change in any group that is experiencing disruptive change. The first four steps of the activity encourage a group to openly identify and discuss their emotions and how these emotions are impacting on their ability to function during change: physically, emotionally, cognitively, and in relationships. These initial four steps can be used as a shorter stand-alone activity. The remaining steps provide a group with opportunities to learn how to let go of emotions, make clear decisions about their emotions and place time frames on their emotional processing. The second activity is a follow-up activity that can be used by individuals in any context to address the immediate emotional impact of change in the moment.

Both of these activities are based on the Praxis for Change Framework (illustrated below). The Praxis is applicable to circumstances where change is externally driven and imposed or internally derived and desired. The Praxis points towards four important aspects of change: the physical practical aspect, the emotional, the rational, thinking cognitive aspect and the relational. These four aspects are integrally related and all are intrinsically necessary to any comprehensive assessment and response to change.

Although the Praxis for Change can be applied to any form of change, the agile, scalable and transferable nature of the framework makes it particularly useful when dealing with disruptive change. Once the Praxis has been learned and used in one context it can be adapted and used within other contexts. This means the Praxis is useful in the present and in the future. It will provide consistency and continuity across time and across different facets of change processes. This means any initial investment in the Praxis can provide immediate, extensive and long term value.

Group Activity

If Steps 1 — 4 of this activity are used as a stand-alone activity, ensure that the group participates in a transition activity (eg. morning tea, lunch break) before returning to their work duties. (Total time 1 hr 30 mins). The transition between Steps 4 and 5 is a natural point where a group can take a break. Steps 5 – 10 provide your group with opportunities to learn how to let go of emotions, make clear decisions with respect to their emotions and place timeframes on their emotional processing. It is possible to split this Group Activity across two separate occasions, providing that group membership does not change significantly and all group members who participate have completed steps 1- 4 prior to participating in steps 5 — 10. This may be a preferable option if a group needs more time to address their emotional awareness before progressing.

1. Start with introductions and create a safe environment in which people can share how they are feeling. Discuss the difference between thoughts, judgments, beliefs, and emotions with the group. (15–20 mins).
2. Facilitate everyone to pause and observe the emotions that arise — for them and their colleagues — in relation to the Covid-19 Coronavirus and the changes occurring as a result of the virus. Allow the group to share their observations. Encourage the group not to judge or try to justify their emotions. Simply observe them. If it is appropriate, write up the emotions somewhere everyone can see them. Discuss which items are emotions and which are thoughts, judgments and beliefs. (5–15 mins).
3. Organise the group into pairs in which they will focus on and explore the emotion that is presently most impactful for them. Person A listens and gently guides the exploration of Person B. Person B explores the following aspects of their chosen emotion: the physical impact of the emotion, the cognitive impact of the emotion, ie. the way the emotion affects their ability to think about and understand their situation, and, lastly, the impact this emotion has on their relationships with others. Allow 5 minutes and then swap roles. Circulate amongst the pairs throughout the allotted time and ensure that their discussions are focused on emotions, not thoughts, judgments or beliefs (10–15 mins).
4. Provide the group with an opportunity to share anything they would like to about their exploration of their emotion and include the following questions in the discussion:

A: Do you tend to think and then feel, or feel and then think? (5 mins).

B: How easy was it for you to stay focused on your emotions throughout the activity? (5 mins).

C: What consequences of your emotion for yourself and others did you identify? (5 mins).

D: Was anything surprising for you? (5 mins).

If appropriate, add this material to the previous material. (Total time: 20–30 mins).

1. Introduce the concepts of letting go and deciding to the group. (10 mins).
2. Organise the group into new pairs. Guide the pairs through the following considerations.

A: Allow each person in each pair to consider which emotions they currently need to hold on to and process and which emotions they are ready to let go. (5 mins).

B: Allow each person in each pair to consider the consequences of holding on and letting go, including the consequences on themselves and others physically, emotionally, cognitively and in a relationship. (20 mins).

C: Allow each person in each pair to decide on a timeframe for their holding on and letting go. (5 mins). (Total time: 30 mins).

1. Expand your group’s tool kit by discussing several ways of letting go can be achieved. Roleplay each approach to letting go. Facilitate the group to roleplay these processes in pairs. This provides each person with the tools to integrate their decisions from 6 above into their present and future actions whilst also acknowledging and allowing for their chosen time frame. Explain that they can choose any emotion or situation to role play. It does not need to be the same as the emotion they identified in Step 3 above. (30 mins).
2. As a group, discuss step 7 so that group members can share and receive insights about letting go from each other. (10 mins).
3. Lead a group discussion on the entire activity so that the group can gain insights from everyone’s experiences. (10 mins) (Activity total time: 2 hrs 30 mins — 3 hrs).
4. Ideally, bring the session to a close with a transition activity (eg. lunch, afternoon tea) before people return to their work duties.

An activity such as this provides a context for people to bring their attention to their emotional reactions and responses to issues like the Coronavirus. This activity potentially increases their awareness of their emotions and how these emotions may be impacting on their functioning. This awareness facilitates people to make more informed choices in relation to emotions like fear, conflict, resistance and anxiety. Raising awareness of these matters in a group situation, allows and enables group dynamics and relationships to be addressed. Conducting this activity is a tangible action which a business, organisation or community group can take to support and maintain safe and functional environments.

In response to the Coronavirus, for instance, some organisations are asking employees to self-isolate and work from home after travel abroad. How are those working from home and those working with them from a distance likely to respond emotionally? In some instances, this could lead to broken connections, lost or strained opportunities for team collaboration and a loss of environments that support individuals to mitigate the stress involved with their work. Understandably, people are choosing to avoid public places and events. But such precautionary measures can increase isolation and loneliness. The emotional impact of this in people’s home lives will accompany them into their communities and workplaces and, inevitably, impact on productivity and relationships.

Creating emotional awareness potentially reduces not only conflict within teams, but also can ease the relationship between a business and those who may be facing redundancy or other major changes. Creating emotional awareness can potentially protect the long-term reputation and functioning of the business and contribute to avoiding unnecessarily grievous changes in staffing.

This activity can be used at many different junctures within the change process. It scales from a minimum of two participants (facilitator and participant) to large groups. The activity is transferable across unique facets of a specific change to use with new or unrelated change processes. It is best facilitated by a person who is not a group member, and who does not have authority over group members.

The next activity is short and focuses on only three Praxis components: pause, observe and let go. Once learned and practiced, it can be implemented in as little as 30 seconds and used as often as required.

Individual Activity:

1. Begin by bringing your awareness to your breath. Observe the four phases of the breath: inhale, pause, exhale, pause. (1min).
2. Count evenly to three on each of the phases of the breath. Judge the length of your counting on what is comfortable for you to achieve on every phase of the breath. Do not strain or exaggerate the time you spend on any phase of the breath. Your goal is to make each phase of the breath last for the same length of time. Practice this for 1–5 mins. Continue to breathe to this rhythm until step 8. Steps 3–7 are completed within each cycle of the breath. Practice focusing specifically on each phase of the breath and its emotional process for the time period allotted for each step.
3. As you inhale become aware of the emotion that you are feeling. (1min).
4. As you pause at the top of the inhalation, simply observe this emotion. Do not judge or try to justify it. (1 min).
5. As you exhale, let the emotion go. Imagine you are breathing out the emotion. Relax your whole body. (1–5 mins).
6. As you pause at the end of the exhalation imagine the emotion is dissolving harmlessly. (1 min).
7. Repeat steps 4–7 above as many times as you need to. Remember to maintain the rhythm of the phases of the breath cycle established in 2 above.
8. Return to normal, natural, relaxed diaphragmatic breathing. (Activity total time: 30sec — 15 mins)

On a solo ocean swim along Orewa Beach last week I cited a dorsal fin about 50m in front of me. Assuming the fin belonged to a dolphin I continued en route. When I next looked up to get my bearings I realised that it was not one fin but two, in a row. Those fins belonged to a hammerhead shark. I felt panic rising inside my wetsuit as I realised that the shark was now less than ten meters away. Immediately, I rolled onto my back and started the activity above, counteracting the panic reaction and allowing myself to gather my thoughts. I realised that the fins had been pointing out to sea, not towards me and clearly belonged to a juvenile hammerhead. There were no signs of any companions. Most likely it would ignore me as long as I didn’t do anything to attract its attention (like panicked prey behaviour). After several minutes of remaining still and exhaling my fear, I turned over again and looked for the fins. They had moved out to sea. I had not attracted this shark’s attention and was able to continue my swim. Earlier, I stated that “Not addressing the emotional impact of change is likely to exacerbate negative reactions and their consequences”. How differently might my encounter have played out if I had not had the skills necessary to address my emotional reaction?