BE READY, OUR TIME TO CARE IS COMING

WE CAN SUPPORT FIREYS AND OTHERS AS THEY ARE RELEASED FROM LONG PERIODS OF FIREFRONT STRESS

As we track through January, the devastation from the fires is written across our country and across many people’s lives, including those who have been giving their all to prevent further loss of life, property and wildlife.

For now, as they have done for many months, brave souls work to exhaustion every day to hold back the fire wall, maintain safety barriers around homes, farms and communities, supporting people and rescuing animals or sadly and tragically euthanasing those too hurt to recover.

The epic nature of this event and its impact will sadly only be truly realised in time. The incredible focus and energy needed to continually deliver day after day in that intensity is exhausting and brings to mind the outcome of having to maintain your attention for extended periods.

Have you ever had the experience where you’ve told yourself that you just need to keep focused on making sure that you “stay calm; the person who just pushed in front of me in the ticketing queue isn’t aware that I’ve have been waiting two hours” or the instruction from your spouse or partner “please engage with my parents/siblings politely, they are only here for a few days over Christmas” or that “that child screaming in the seat behind me on the plane will stop before we get to Hong Kong”?

Likely you hold on to that thought, focus on it and will it into being with such concentration that eventually, out of nowhere, a relatively minor distraction crumbles the wall of your intention and you find yourself in an outburst that disrupts not only your self-control, it also has every other person in the vicinity staring at you as though you have just landed from outer space.

This phenomenon I call “focus fatigue” and it is a form of mental exhaustion from having maintained a focus on preventing very specific actions while simultaneously focusing on a specific task.

Neuroscience calls this directed attention fatigue. Directing attention requires a great deal of focus. As the brain uses about 20 per cent of energy intake and about 25 per cent of oxygen intake when we concentrate, it is not surprising that we can only sustain the inhibitory mechanism of the brain to block out external stimuli or distractions for so long. Then, mentally fatigued from the effort, we get caught in the grip of our limbic system (the emotional centre of the brain) and unload – politely called an “amygdala hijack”, resulting in a full-on flight/fight reaction.

Now, while the easy answer to managing this is not to invest in the emotion in the first instance, that is a practised and patient skill. Bringing the point back to those many exhausted people tied up in our current situation – once that passes (and it will) may come a time where a range of emotions, from guilt to anger to sadness and others, prompt behaviour that will need others’ support to express feelings and find a path to peace.

In my mind it is our turn to bring the love and the listening, to hug and hold, to cook and clean and ultimately care with kindness.

Bring your best.