By Patrick Hereng
We live in the center of PARIS (1st Arrondissement) and regularly travel abroad (Africa, Asia, ...) in addition to our professional activity. With the confinement, everything stopped abruptly and we took refuge in our second home in the Drôme. It is a natural confinement because the first neighbor is 1 km away ....
So all our social activities stopped overnight, like for everyone else.
An important element of our Parisian life was our "couple fraternity". We met approximately every month with 3 other Parisian couples to exchange news and reflect as a couple on a specific topic related to the current events of our couples.
The lockdown also put a stop to this practice and we said to ourselves that the virtual could be an answer to our need for exchange between couples. We therefore planned our first virtual couple fraternity on March 30 ...
And the result was friendly and surprising: in addition to the friendly exchange of news during the Skype aperitif, we felt the closeness and brotherhood between us with a lot of kindness. The three young couples are coping rather well with confinement. They juggle pregnancy or their baby while working from home or on partial unemployment.
They take more time to communicate as a couple and do activities (sports, cooking, etc.) together. They manage to find time to pray and meditate.
A little wink for us: we were able to enjoy the applause in Paris at 8 o'clock.
Following the news, a text allowed us to refocus the discussion on the impacts of confinement and post-confinement. We then had some time as a couple (offline) based on open questions.
This time was appreciated by all participants and we were surprised to see the same involvement as in physical fellowship. It was useful even with "no problem" couples in the current situation.
So, I recommend you copy us. You can take some time with your spouse or confinement partner to answer the questions. You can also involve a few friends and start with a Skype aperitif.
Attached is a frame that you can copy, distribute or amend without moderation.
Patrick HERENG
Couple and confinement: love in the time of Corona.
Side effect of the virus: an opportunity to review priorities in the contemporary frenzy. On this occasion, we share a beautiful text by Raffaele Morelli, psychiatrist and founding president of the Riza Institute of Psychosomatic Medicine.
I believe that the cosmos has its way of rebalancing things and its laws, when they become too upset. The moment we are living, full of anomalies and paradoxes, makes us think...
In a phase where climate change, caused by environmental disasters, has reached worrying levels. First China, then so many other countries, are forced into lockdown; the economy is collapsing, but pollution is decreasing considerably.
The air is getting better; we use a mask, but we breathe...
In a historical moment where, all over the world, certain discriminatory ideologies and policies are being reactivated, forcefully recalling a petty past, a virus arrives, which makes us experience that, in an instant, we too can become the discriminated, the segregated, those who are blocked at the borders, who bring the disease.
Even if we have nothing to do with it.
Even though we are white, western and travel first class
In a society based on productivity and consumption, in which we all run 14 hours a day after, we do not know why, without Saturday or Sunday, without any more break in the calendar, suddenly the "stop" arrives.
Everyone at a standstill, at home, for days and days.
To take into account a time whose value we have lost, as soon as it is no longer measurable in money, in profit.
Do we even know what to do with it?
At a time when the education of our own children, by force of circumstances, is often delegated to various figures and institutions, the virus closes schools and forces us to find alternative solutions, to reunite mothers and fathers with their own children.
This forces us to rebuild a “family.”
In a dimension where relationships, communication, sociability, are essentially played out in this non-space of the virtual world of social networks, giving us the illusion of proximity, the virus takes away proximity, the one that is very real: no one should touch each other, no kisses, no hugs, no distance, in the cold of non-contact.
Since when have we taken these gestures and their meaning for granted?
In a social climate where thinking about oneself has become the rule, the virus sends us a clear message: the only way out is reciprocity, a sense of belonging, community, a sense of being part of something bigger, that needs to be taken care of, and that can take care of us. Shared responsibility, feeling that our actions depend not only on our own fate, but on the fate of others, of all those around us. And that we depend on them.
So if we stop the "witch hunt" of asking who is to blame and why this happened, and instead ask what we can learn, I think we all have a lot to think about and do.
Because with the cosmos and its laws, obviously, we have an excessive debt.
He reminds us of this at a high price, with a virus.
What do I find resonant with in this text? (each person quotes a sentence)
Couple work time (45 min)
10 min of personal reflection
- Personally
- In my personal and current situation, what is a source of joy for me?
- What is difficult for me personally?
- Have I discovered resources at home that I didn’t suspect? And/or checked out resources that were already familiar?
- Have I discovered limits in myself that I did not suspect? And/or verified limits that were already familiar? What would be the learnings that I would like to make?
- COUPLE - STATE OF THE GAMES
- What do I like about our relationship in this situation?
- What is difficult for me in our relationship in this situation?
- How could you help me... I express a need
- What would I need to live well during the rest of this confinement period?
- COUPLE - ASPIRATION
- What would make me say that I succeeded - that we succeeded and optimized this time?
- What are the 3 invitations and concrete actions that I would like to experience personally and together in this period?
- What invitation to change can I welcome?
20 min exchange
- Everyone shares their thoughts in 5 minutes, the other listens and notes without interrupting
- He reformulates what he has heard about the fears, difficulties and joys of others, about these needs and invitations
- We are changing
10 minutes of consolidating our action plan
- Everyone writes down the ideas that they agree with, what they suggest to live better and enjoy this time (3 min)
- Share and validate 2-3 concrete actions adapted to both
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