This blog has talked a lot about healthy relationships and how effective communication is the key to success; to relate to one another properly involves a few aspects like body language, eye contact, and attitude - not just words alone.

Your situation with COVID-19 restrictions obviously varies depending where you are in the world; for me, we are still in lockdown with a restricted number of early years school children back at in-person class, while the remainder still remotely learn. Only essential businesses are open while we make the excruciating crawl back to a semblance of normality. During the quarantine conditions, many of us (who aren’t key workers) are either on furlough or working from home - there are limited face-to face interactions apart from our immediate families, or the friendly staff member at the store while picking up some milk.

The pandemic has changed how we communicate over several months, and it is even possible that these changes may have impacted our skills on a daily basis. Even when we do meet face to face, it’s generally brief, and from behind a mask. A majority of our conversations take place on social media, video platforms or phone calls.

On one level, social distancing is best for physical health at the current time (Disclaimer: this post is not for the purposes of discussing opinions on lockdowns/masks/government mandates!), however, the other non-physical effects of long-term social isolation have been well-documented. With communication, one real issue is the less we talk to people, the more likely we are to become suspicious of them, and wonder if they have a hidden agenda. When that seed of distrust takes root, we start to be on edge and respond defensively. When we feel defensive, we isolate further, and become even more suspicious. The downward spiral makes us withdraw more fully and our suspicions and distrust bring about a total shutdown and a self-fulfilling prophecy that communication isn’t needed anymore.

Of course, many people are also now much more proficient in using technology to communicate, or may have better access to it than in the past, and this can have great benefits for some groups in society who feel isolated.

Regardless of your current method of communication with friends, family or for work, it’s essential that we all remain mindful of conversational cues and the impact your communication is having on each one of you. Not everyone feels comfortable and confident with communication, and adding in technical factors can be stressful. Nor can everyone compartmentalize and focus on the screen and the stilted nature of video conversation, so like in face-to face situations, we still need to be kind and considerate.

We all go through spells of feeling like we have nothing left to say, especially if your life has taken on a somewhat “Groundhog Day”-esque quality to it, but it’s important to keep some normality and keep in touch with friends, family and community as best as we can.

There will definitely be a real feeling of re-entry burnout for some of us when life gets back to normal (as normal as can be, I guess!). Will we still cringe a bit when we watch pre-COVID TV shows, with audiences and guests sitting cheek-by-jowl with no masks, for example?

Reaching for normal requires slow steps, but we also have to acknowledge that normal is never static - it morphs and changes through time, pandemic or no pandemic - normal is fluid.

Hopefully we will all be able to strike an eventual balance between our technical communication and the face-to-face ones. We may be a bit out of practice with the latter, but they are definitely needed again. Soon.