Corona — from where you’d rather be
Ok, so it’s cheesy, for sure, to pull on the beer slogan…. but like many of us, no doubt, those words have been on our minds as this pandemic works its way through the world’s psyche.
From where you’d rather be.
Coronavirus is a wake up call to all of us to look at where we’d rather be — and I don’t mean this in a purely physical sense. Where would we rather be as a global community… and what does that mean for us as individuals? HOW should we rather be?
Coronavirus is showing us the power of choice… and who or what ultimately decides.
When choices that we’ve always been able to make are taken away from us…. what choices do we have left?
It’s giving us a choice as to how we’d like to react in this situation.
It’s asking us to consider what adjustments we can and will ultimately have to make.
It’s giving us the chance to make peace with reality— by aligning our inner relationship with the outside world.
Many of us are feeling panicked. We are uncertain. We feel unstable in the face of change. We dive into a scarcity mentality and concern for what could run out, what we could lose and are already losing.
I write this from deep in the Negev Desert — where I’m spending time living with a community which sustains itself on revenue produced through hosting festivals, now set to be cancelled under the latest restrictions handed down by Israel’s Ministry of Health. No festivals means no income… which puts the future of this desert dwelling community in doubt. They are also feeling the heat. Everyone is impacted — even out here in the middle of the desert. We are all in this, you guys. We are in this together.
In terms of what I’ve been witnessing around me and on my social channels, panic is a fear reaction triggered by a sense of no control and a clinging to life as we know it.
It’s actual definition is -
Sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behaviour.
Coronavirus is holding up a mirror to ourselves. It’s showing us what happens when we panic and it’s showing us the results of fear.
There is no doubt these are scary times. There is no doubt that what’s happening to us and around us is having a very real and destabilising effect — and one that makes the future feel uncertain. Uncertainty, since our brains use pattern recognition to predict and feel safe, WILL spark fear within us. But — now it’s about what we do in the face of this fear and how we choose to respond.
When we react unconsciously in the face of fear we become selfish and divided and we shut down and become flooded or paralysed.
When we react to a scenario that challenges us with love, our hearts and minds open to possibilities. We move into problem solving and finding the silver lining. We move towards what IS available with ease, rather than feeling frustrated because we simply can’t have the things we used to have.
It’s a new practice for many of us, but we don’t have any other choice right now. We simply have to tap into love if we are to get through this with grace.
We can now try to do things a little differently. We can reflect. Everything is cancelled — so we have the space.
We can ask ourselves…
What’s truly important to us?
What matters in the end?
What should we be looking after?
What did we have in our lives before the Coronavirus outbreak, that we no longer have, and wish we still did? What were those things we valued so much? How did those things make us feel?
How can we continue to have those FEELINGS within a new set of external circumstances? With a new external reality?
We can work on changing our feelings with some inner engineering — changing the external reality is a little more challenging.
It’s highlighting the illusion that we are in control.
Coronavirus is showing us the value of gratitude. It’s showing us what we might have, in the past, taken for granted; freedom of travel, creature comforts, abundance, no limits, health, school, community gatherings, toilet paper…
It’s forcing us to slow down. To isolate. But, it’s also uniting us all. It’s giving us an opportunity to reflect on the fact that when it comes down to it… we need each other to survive. We need to come together and work together and share and cooperate. We need to help each other and comfort each other.
Coronavirus is a reminder about what unites us and how “in this together” we really are. As much as we think our small, individual lives are our own, we do not exist in a vacuum. In fact, one small action of mine can greatly impact the life of someone else on the other side of the world. It magnifies our individual power and how profound the energetic flow is between us. We can see how through a simple handshake we can exchange something so powerful… we are transferring energy and intention around the world every day. That’s why we are encouraged to smile at strangers because the flow on effect is no doubt a global one.
It’s giving us an opportunity to see that it is possible to do things differently. To tread lighter. To move slower. To engage in the world with less blind activity and abandon for the consequences. It’s showing us which places we are putting our efforts and energy into and begging us to ask whether those places matter as much as we think they do.
It’s slowing us down to think before we act. Before we touch. Before we insert ourselves into a scenario.
How can we function more effectively as a community — as a GLOBAL community?
This article says more than I can say in this regard —
https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-iranian-cleric-okays-buying-future-israeli-coronavirus-vaccine
A prominent Iranian cleric has said it is permissible to use a future coronavirus vaccine developed by Israel if “there is no substitute.”
The Iranian regime views Israel as a mortal enemy. But Iran has also faced one of the most severe outbreaks of the COVID-19 coronavirus outside its origin and epicenter in China.
“It is not permissible to buy and sell from Zionists and Israel,” Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, 93, told the Iranian daily Hamdeli on Wednesday.
“Unless the treatment is unique and there is no substitute,” he added, “then this is not an obstacle.”
While working as a news anchor in the Middle East, I often sat with my head in my hands, feeling despair at the amount of pain I saw in the world. I so badly wanted to help ‘save the world’. It’s a long story for another time, but in short, it soon became obvious to me that the situation I needed to help ‘save’, was the one happening inside of myself; to find peace, acceptance and harmony within myself and my own life. This was where I needed to start.
While trying to contend with the amount of tension, tragedy, oppression, division, war and grabs for power that dominated my discussions on a daily basis (welcome to life within the news media landscape), I found some solace in an outline offered through Vedic wisdom. The Hindu triumvirate consists of three gods — the destroyer, the maintainer and the creator . These forces are at play at all times. Destruction needs to happen in order to re-create.
While this makes intellectual sense, I still experienced a sense of overwhelm in terms of the scale of destruction - how much pain, how much fighting…why must things work this way? What can I do? I realised that grasping for those answers outside wasn’t getting me anywhere. It was what I saw outside myself that forced me to turn inwards, towards myself, in order to learn how to contribute to the outside world more constructively.
So to this end, while this is a global issue that feels bigger than us right now, I believe our power comes by taking responsibility for ourselves as individuals first; to be conscious and intentional with our actions. We need to ensure we are safe to make sure others are safe… but this doesn’t mean stockpiling goods… in fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Buying up all the hand sanitisers prevents others from staying clean and therefore doesn’t actually prevent your contracting the virus. You might have all the toilet paper and a squeaky clean ass, but how enjoyable and healthy of an environment will you be living in, if the rest of us are covered in poop?
Everyone plays a role in the functioning of society… so it’s not about only looking after yourself. If our doctors and teachers and engineers and farmers and manufacturers and chefs and mums and fathers and brothers (and x and y and z) get sick and businesses shut down… what good is it to you if you and only you are ok? This is about being considered in your actions to ensure that WE ALL stay safe and in business.
Part of those actions are about our inner attitudes. What kind of a vibration best serves us and those around us? Does fear, stress and panic support our immune systems, cognitive processes, decision making abilities, emotional states? Does fear, stress and panic teach resilience to our children? Does it make them feel safe and secure? What DOES? Can you adopt THOSE attitudes instead? Test them out…. what does love and surrender and optimism and hope foster?
Love and fear are powerful forces…. choose which one you’d prefer to play with.
It seems this is nature’s way of giving us an opportunity. To show us who is boss, the fragility of life, the need to work together, our tendency to cling to things, our resistance to change and reticence to trust our ability to adapt.
It’s showing us who we are when things don’t go our way or to plan. How do we respond when confronted with the unexpected or with something new?
It’s an invitation to look at ourselves — not at OTHERS — not to blame others or expect others to change… but to look at how WE can play a role in the transforming our world.
I’ve spent the last decade working as a journalist — and have recently decided to take a break.
A friend reflected to me earlier how different my life would be if I was still working in the news industry… how I’d be in the eye of the storm.
It is exactly for this reason that I’m able to reflect in this way.
We can often lose perspective when we are too close to it.
Since the effects of this pandemic are touching me but lightly thus far, it might sound like I shouldn’t have the permission to comment — but I think it is exactly for this reason that I feel compelled to. I know I’m often given the best advice from those who are removed from my situation… because they can comment objectively — with a calm and considered view. I hope that amidst the fear and destruction, I can also try to maintain my own positive creative force. I hope I can support those around me and I know I’m already feeling supported by my own network.
I hope this post in some way helps us to see our power in this scenario. We have a choice… and we can use this experience to elevate ourselves and our communities to function more sustainably and peacefully.
It might seem like a lot right now… too much to do… too much to adapt to… to much to contend with… but Anna (Kristen Bell’s character) says it best in Frozen 2 (which I went to see by myself at the cinema because I don’t have cool friends that know to do cool things like see Frozen 2)…
“I’ve seen dark before, but not like this
This is cold, this is empty, this is numb
The life I knew is over, the lights are out
Hello, darkness, I’m ready to succumb
…
You are lost, hope is gone
But you must go on
And do the next right thing
…
Just do the next right thing
Take a step, step again
It is all that I can to do
The next right thing
I won’t look too far ahead
It’s too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath, this next step
This next choice is one that I can make”
Anna. You are so, so right.
A bit of Googling taught me something which allows for a nice metaphor in this scenario. The word “corona” refers, in a general sense, to a circle or ring of light. Let’s try come together and find the unity in this scenario. It’s very name is calling for it.
Let’s look at how we got here and moving forward decide where we’d rather be… and what it will take to get us there.
