This article isn’t light and fluffy. Looking after our wellbeing isn’t always light and fluffy. And inequality certainly isn’t light and fluffy.
You might even wonder how this article relates to your wellbeing – since that’s why you’ve landed on this website. I’ll get to that, I promise.
First, though, I’d like to share a Whatsapp message received from a friend at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It read:
It’s not been easy, I haven’t had anything covid-related happen to me but it is painful seeing it happen to people who look like me.”
The message refers to anti-Asian racism.
During the pandemic, we witnessed monstrous anti-Asian attacks in the US. But let’s be clear, this isn’t just an issue in America.
Asian hate-crime has been rising all over The World.
You might be thinking: “I’m not racist, what has this got to do with me or my wellbeing?”
Have you heard of implicit bias?
Or you might know it as unconscious bias… Put simply, implicit bias is an attitude or association towards a group that operates at an unconscious level.
Without our awareness.
Our implicit biases might even contradict our conscious beliefs. We can have implicit biases that we firmly do not agree with.
I use the word “we” because no-one escapes here – even the most compassionate and equality-driven individuals have implicit biases. They exist between races and within races.
Evolution branded us all with this tendency.
How implicit biases impact your wellbeing
As well as impacting the world we live in; oppressing marginalised groups or subjecting individuals to hate crime. Implicit biases also impact your own wellbeing.
Our brains still use the same evolutionary patterns of response, these biases frequently activate the fear centre in our brains – firing-up our fight-or-flight stress response.
In other words, our implicit biases raise our stress levels.
Research shows this happens simply by seeing a photo of someone who looks different to us.
What can we do about our implicit biases?
Here’s just one idea.
The below practice enables you to interrupt your own implicit biases, reduce the stress they cause you and bring greater awareness to the part we all have to play in the fight towards equality: