Mourning, illness or Covid-19 crisis: whatever the difficulties, altruism helps us to get out of our ruminations, to overcome suffering and opens up new perspectives.
Solidarity? A word that resonates loudly when the world around us begins to waver. Perhaps because this “feeling of a moral duty towards others” often wakes up in adversity. While we ourselves experience anguish, fear or grief, taking care of those more in need, giving our time to make society more just then becomes a necessity, an emergency.
Of course, the lot of those who benefit from this outpouring of generosity is improved. This is the goal, but the existence of those who put themselves at the service of their fellows is also seen strengthened, appeased, refocused.
As if showing solidarity during the ordeal made it possible to reconnect with one’s vital forces. The Anglo-Saxons call this the “helper’s high” (the euphoria of the helper). The coronavirus pandemic has provided us with confirmation of this.
Although under enormous stress, people have felt more than ever the need to help those who find themselves in the same or worse situation than theirs.
Come out of helplessness, feel useful!
Grief, illness, loss of work… The misfortune that befalls us often generates a period of astonishment. We feel crushed by the event, completely helpless, and we rehash our dissatisfactions and afflictions. However, focusing on difficulties – sometimes greater than ours – can be a way out of our idle fatigue.
Those who decide to seize the opportunity to bounce back from a painful moment have understood, more or less consciously, that the meaning of life is life itself. Time will help them to do their work of mourning but, in the meantime, life does not wait, neither for them, nor for their loved ones, nor more generally for all those who are in need.
Break the isolation, go towards the other!
Faced with misfortune, we tend to withdraw into ourselves, turn our backs on the outside world and fall back into our shell. Nothing more legitimate. However, if going through a period of blues, or even depression, may be necessary to regain our balance, to get out of loneliness and to maintain contacts is a necessary step in order to fully rebuild ourselves.
What if showing solidarity made it possible to set foot in the stirrup?
Soothe the anguish, turn away from the pain!
The lesson that can be learned from any ordeal is that we need each other. We the recent period of lockdown, we had to give up a large part of our individual freedom. This led us to decenter, to think about the other.
This experience forced us to come out of individualism and narcissism to realize to what extent the human being is a gregarious animal. Becoming aware of our codependence and the possibility of finding pleasure in it can be a source of great strength.
Having a good heart is health!
Research has shown that the most profuse people have lower rates of stress and blood pressure, with the consequences that this implies in terms of cardiovascular disease, sleep disturbances or joint pain. Likewise, a study from Duke University in the United States looked at senior volunteers and found that they suffered less from depression and Alzheimer’s disease. Let’s think of ourselves first, let’s be generous!
I give you, I give myself!
American, German and Swiss researchers have studied what happens in our brains when we share. The results of medical imaging have thus revealed that generous people have higher brain activity in the temporo-parietal junction and involve areas of the reward circuit. Showing solidarity with others thus contributes to the production of serotonin, the hormone responsible for the feeling of tranquility.
Reference: https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/moments-solidarity-coronavirus-around-the-world/
http://ergonetwork.org/2020/03/covid-19-extreme-hardship-and-solidarity-in-these-times-of-crisis/
Photo de Andrea Piacquadio provenant de Pexels
