“In the absence of safe social interactions, the body generates a threat response…”

David Rock, SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others

Relatedness

At the heart of being human is being tribal. In normal circumstances, we feel a need to belong, and all throughout our lives we attach and affiliate ourselves with tribes or teams. With this comes trust and shared access to resources.

For many, if not most of us, the family is our number one tribe. Now, with COVID-19, is the time for family to shine, and the purpose of this book is to build the strength of your number one tribe.

Our brains reward us when we are included, and give us pain when we are excluded. This threat dynamic exists in a whole range of situations, from forgetting to invite someone, bullying, and even momentarily ignoring someone. We feel good, however, when we are surprisingly included in a group, thought of in a generous way or simply being acknowledged.  The depth of relatedness appears when, after holding a door open for a stranger, they either thank us, or not. The small reward or pain appears seemingly instantly.

Some children seek constant reminders of the need to feel ‘in the tent’. Kids who often say “Hi” to a parent, even when nobody has left the house, are seeking to reaffirm their belonging to the tribe. There are lots of other ways that this manifests, both with children and adults.

Finally, we even affiliate with easily with complete strangers. I am a passionate fan of the Richmond Tigers AFL club, whose colours are yellow and black. The importance of this symbolic colour combination is even reinforced in the team song. When I see another fans wearing the colours, I feel affiliation towards these people, even to the point of something being said to recognise and further reinforce the tribal bond. Those who follow an Australian rules club will all have experienced a stranger sharing that symbolic call of “Go Tigers!” (or whatever your team is).

So we see that the pandemic has robbed us of another significant social need. All of our out-of-home social networks have been disrupted. While some have been replaced by Zoom tribes and such, the true value of face-to-face engagement with real tribes has been lost. For those with strong family relationships within the home, this deficit has probably been offset. For the remainder, where home is a lonely place, where relationships are not strong, or worse, destructive, COVID-19 has been a nightmare.