COMMUNITY LENS

General Perception of the Situation

Your focus will be on working with and through others to solve problems impacting large groups of people. Your deep compassion for the plight of others may cause you to struggle emotionally at this time as you genuinely will feel the pain of others. Your willingness to take the time and listen to the specific challenges, pressures and obstacles being faced by others may overwhelm you at times as you realise the scope of the situation and what can realistically be achieved or solved.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are limiting in nature it may cause you to be overly reliant on those in a position of authority making decisions in the best interests of everyone, trusting this to be the case and presenting an overly optimistic picture in order to minimise the pain others feel. Your beliefs that everyone should be concerned about how their actions create a ripple effect on others in order to drive compassion and consideration may prevent you from being empathetic to those that are simply mentally and emotionally unable to think beyond themselves in order to survive through this crisis.

If your underlying beliefs associated with this lens are supporting in nature it will typically result in you sharing what you have and encouraging others to be considerate of the needs of others so no one suffers unnecessarily as a result of the self-preserving actions of others. Your focus will be on working with others to achieve the ultimate best outcome for everyone and you may struggle when the reality of the situation unfolds in a way where this simply may not be possible.

Supporting beliefs

I am willing to share what I have with others so we can get through this challenging time together

The more I am thoughtful of the needs of others, the more care and support others may show me in return

We are all responsible for doing our part to help alleviate this situation and ease the burden for others

What I choose to do has a ripple effect on other people

I believe we each have the ability and the social responsibility to create change and do things differently in order for everyone to benefit equally

Limiting beliefs

Everyone must think about others more than self at the moment

It’s selfish and irresponsible of people to only think of themselves

The pain that other people may be experiencing is my pain also

I am responsible for the level of pain and comfort others around me experience through this challenging time

I can’t feel gratitude for what I have when others are losing what they have

Key Questions to Ask Yourself

How may you be presenting yourself as superior to others based on your altruistic views?
Where may you be overlooking the facts and reality of the situation in order to minimise pain?
In what ways may be holding onto a delusional view of how this crisis can be solved?
How might you need to prepare yourself for the worst case scenario where others truly suffer irrespective of best intentions?
What different perspectives may you be struggling to embrace at this time?
In serving others what do you receive in return?
How may you leave yourself open to damaging emotional pain by allowing your compassion to overwhelm you?
How is your empathy serving you and others?
How might your attachment to a particular positive outcome to the situation be clouding your judgement and decisions?
How can you inspire others to actively care about the plight of others at this time?
How can you teach others to empathise with those around them, particularly individuals different to them?
For what reason is it so important to you that we all live in harmony?

Motivational Driver Impact

Your view of the situation and choices you make will be influenced by your dominant motivational driver in the following way:

You will tend to pride yourself during this time on how compassionate, considerate and empathetic you are effortlessly being. This may cause you to struggle to understand how challenging others may find it to be this way.

Your primary focus will be on acts of service for others and you will seek to go above and beyond to be considerate. It may at times cause you to go without and put yourself at an unnecessary risk for others.

You will have a heightened attached to an outcome that has the lowest possible detrimental impact to others. This attachment to a ideal outcome may cause you to be distressed when a different reality plays out.

Action Level Impact

Your ability to adapt to changes and the pace at which you will respond will be impacted by your action level result in the following way:

High
Your compassion for others will kick into overdrive immediately and you will be quick to take action that addresses the needs of those around you and serves to minimise the impact to them. Be sure to take a moment to address your own personal needs and those of people dependent on you.

Medium
You may experience moments of action where you are focused on helping others with moments of overwhelm where size of the challenges wear on you emotionally. It will be important you take time to recharge your batteries before focusing on serving others once more.

Low
You may feel paralysed for a period of time, almost in shock, as you come to terms with the enormity of the situation and the complexity of the problems to be solved. This shock may take a while to work through emotionally delaying your desire to help and serve others.

Recommended Action

It will important you play out the worse case scenario in order for you to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for the potential scale of fallout and impact to a broad range of people.

Your natural tendency is to assume if we work together we can achieve an ideal outcome with as minimal impact as possible because we have kept the greater good in mind. As this may lead to you to get in a fantasy of what could be it will be useful for you to consider and take stock of some harsh realities so you are best positioned emotionally and subsequently ready to serve where you will be most needed.

Contemplate the following:

Based on what is happening in other places around the world and the impact the virus has had on lifestyles, families, livelihoods, businesses, communities and the economy how might that same pattern play out here at home?
For you, how would you describe the worst case scenario?And should this play out, what might you need to do now in order to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for this significant shift?
Looking at all possible futures where do you think you can add the most value and be of the most service? How might you need to develop yourself now or what groundwork do you need to do now in order to be ready should the time come?
To retain hope, explore how these possible futures create positive opportunities for change in how our society interacts, what we value more as a result, and how our overall perception of a meaningful life could adapt and shift.

This may be difficult for you to work through and imagine. However, that is precisely why it is important for you to consider now, so you can prepare yourself for the possibility of it being a reality. By doing the hard work now you will be able to be the person you desire to be, to be of value to others, at the exact point in time they really need your support.