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Open Minds April 2020 – Speaking with our Parents 

Thank you to all those who took part in our second online Open Minds meeting on the 29th of April 2020. This was our second April meeting.

For some of us we have the privilege of being able to use the lockdown as a time to reflect and refocus our priorities. For others, work has become busier and more demanding despite working from home. Although some of us have been able to use the time to ‘be productive’ we spent some time talking about how the pressure to be productive can prevent us from having the downtime that we need in order to stay physically and mentally well. We wondered if Punjabi culture creates a pressure to keep working and that not working is automatically interpreted as being lazy. This can have a toxic impact on self-esteem.

Some people noticed that their parents seemed to be struggling with relaxing or switching off during the lockdown. We talked about how it is complicated to try and understand their perspective on feeling useful and occupied. Keeping busy might be the best strategy that they have for managing their own stress and worry.
Some of our conversations with our parents have been tense or challenging. We talked about different ways to have beneficial conversations with our parents. This included changing the default topics of conversation to more neutral topics and recognising that often our parents will struggle to know how to relate to us as much as we might struggle to relate to them.

It is important to remember that there is no such thing as a perfect relationship and there will always be times where we feel irritable or annoyed with the people around us. Sometimes reminding ourselves that parents are also adults with their own life histories and personalities can help refocus or change our expectations of them. Hopefully this will give them the opportunity to apply the same thinking to us. 

We will continue to run Open Minds online for the duration of the Lockdown. At the moment we will only be offering the meeting to people who have attended a previous face to face meeting. This is to maintain the safety of the group. We’ll be thinking about safe ways to open up the group to new members and if you have any ideas let us know.

Next Online Meeting Date: Wednesday 27th of May 2020 18:00 – 19:15

If you have been to a face to face meeting in the past and would like to attend one of the above meetings, email us at khulamana@gmail.com and you’ll be sent details of how to join the meeting.

Kuljit
Taraki
Sarbat
Copyright © 2020 Open Minds, All rights reserved.


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