While the world self-isolates to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Angelina Jolie discussed how important it is to check in on each other.
The 44-year-old actress and Special Envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees spoke with California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris in a video conference for Time, where she is also a contributing editor.
With stay-at-home orders in place in almost every state in the country, both Harris said it was important both to maintain those orders, but also to keep in touch with their friends and loved ones.
‘I think it is so important that people hear that,’ Jolie said. ‘To love each other, check in with each other.’
She added, ‘Be there, be a support group, keep your eyes open whether you are a teacher or a friend.’
‘I really do hope people hear this, and they do reach out, and they do pay more attention, and they are not sitting in a moment when they think, “Well maybe, but it’s not my business,”‘ she continued.
The actress added that because kids aren’t going to school right now ‘teachers can’t see the bruises and people aren’t identifying what is happening within some homes.’
Harris also asked Jolie what motivates the actress to, ‘continue to stand as a witness and to not look away,’ and also what she does for ‘self-care.’
Jolie said there was, ‘a time in my life when I became more aware of what was happening around the world,’ and she started to ‘open up’ and hope she was ‘being useful.’
She added that she used to write in a journal a lot and that she was crying all the time, but she met a grandmother who saw her crying and told her, ‘I don’t need you to cry. I need you to help me,’ which motivated her to help.
Burke-Harris was named the first ever Surgeon General of the state of California by Governor Gavin Newsom in January 2019.
She revealed that California has been the first state in the country to do, ‘broad scale training’ for primary care doctors to do ‘routine screening for trauma.’
‘All of the research shows that the single most powerful antidote to the impacts of trauma and adversity is nurturing, caring relationships with others — safe, stable and nurturing relationships.”
The surgeon general also pointed out it was important to believe victims of domestic violence, saying, “All you have to do is be there for a person. All you have to do is believe them when a victim comes forward.”
‘You don’t have to fix it, you don’t have to solve it. You don’t have to worry about not being enough,;’ Burke Harris said. ‘You just have to be willing to be there and listen and to be that shoulder and those open arms.’
Source: dailymail.co.uk
