Gregory's Server
Tip for the "gotta meet em where they are at folks:" You do that by listening, modeling, and validating the valid. You don't do it by denying reality. You don't do it by feeding denial & modeling adverse coping strategies (such as not masking during a pandemic).
Literally part of the six levels of DBT validation.
https://www.co.grant.mn.us/DocumentCenter/View/2701/Levels-of-Validation-Handout
People crave being heard. What they don't crave is cowardice equated as leadership when it comes to public policy that is meant to create a safe space.
None of this denial bullshit solves the problem, makes it better, makes it bearable. It actually perpetuates the insult, the trauma, through a #COVID19 carousel that people cannot disembark from.
White leadership's response to #COVID19 across the board, across all political parties, is a total failure of leadership, courage, validation, empathy, & willingness to stand taut against injustice that is a pervasive, arbitrary risk of disability from infectious disease.
Here's Carl Rogers, LISTENING to a black man's pain, rather than leading the discussion from the top down.
Levels of Validation:
- Shows interest
- Reflects
- Interprets and applies to other comments & thoughts
- Validates the valid
- Appreciates the emotion given the determinant causes of it, even anger.
All my colleagues have aged DECADES in the last 3 years because of all of these failures allowing COVID to age the shit out of their bodies. Despite the stress witnessing this has taken on me, I haven't, because I've had covid once and got lucky.
It's never too late to stand up and do the right thing for you and those around you. #WearAMask