As we all have, I’ve spent a lot of time on Zoom, facilitating workshops, in meetings, trying to maintain some shreds of a social sphere. At least in my circles, we’ve mostly stopped mentioning the exhaustion and grief of the endless virtuality, I think mostly because we have just accepted it and moved onward. But I find it important to acknowledge that the virtual space is not the same as the physical space, and that we are all missing just being together, in deeper ways than we may realize.
Trauma research has shown us, time and again, that we rely on being physically present with other people in order to help us regulate our own bodies. This can be both a help and a hindrance. If we spend time around people who are well-regulated, emotionally aware and healthy, this is incredibly beneficial in helping us with our own healthy regulation. If we spend significant time around people who are stressed, unhappy, or have difficulty finding a sense of equilibrium, we may find that we begin having trouble maintaining our own health and sense of internal calm. This is how we are built as a species, to need each other, physically, in a direct and tangible way.
The last 2.5 years have radically disrupted this aspect of our being in two ways. First, we have been unable to be physically present with each other for long stretches of time and even when we could be present, gatherings were fraught with tension, fear, and extreme levels of stress and anxiety. Our ability to regulate well *with* each other was almost nonexistent. Second, our general anxiety about the pandemic, climate, and other events around the world has been at extraordinary levels for several years, without the ability to calm ourselves (regularly) through physically gathering with others. Normally, we would balance each other out and not all be suffering incredible stress simultaneously, but here we are.
We manage this differently, but we are *all* impacted.
I say all this to acknowledge that despite the silver linings we have managed to discover and rediscover (more access to learning, our adaptability, increased connections to remote friends and colleagues, etc) we are suffering and in distress because we cannot be physically present for each other in the ways our bodies need us to be. When we do finally get together, it’s not as easy as it used to be. It’s tense, awkward, and we can’t tolerate each other for long periods of time.
But it won’t be like this forever. We will start spending more time together, and our bodies will remember how to sync themselves. We’ll find our shared vibe again, even if it takes some awkwardness and social anxiety on the way.