The first thing is to definitely take all the steps we’ve been told to do (wash your hands for at least 20 seconds many times a day, practice social distancing, self isolate, don’t touch your face) and do them….do them!CUT DOWN the amount of time you spend watching news on your phone, your computer, and your TV. You don’t need to have the negative news enter your brain over and over and over again. One time a day to catch up and see what’s happening is just fine.
Go to YouTube and find inspirational/motivational videos, guided meditation videos, and fun videos (I love magic so I watch how tricks are done).
If possible, get outside and walk in nature, but not near others.
Exercise.
Read inspiring material. Do some art. Start a hobby you’ve been wanting to. Write in a journal. Do something that connects you deeper with your Soul.
Download and listen to inspiring audio books.
Ramp up your compassion for others and yourself – heart-opening, love radiating compassion for others and yourself.
Reach out to your family, your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues. I’ve started doing it with a minimum of 3 people every day.
Tell them you’re thinking about them, tell them the specific reasons you love them.
Ask how they’re doing. Ask if they need to talk, ask if they need to be listened to. Be extra kind, be extra loving.
Look to your friends, your community, and the world, see what’s needed and what you can contribute to ease any suffering.
Now let’s talk about the anxiety, the fear, the mind chatter.
If you hear yourself saying, “I am afraid,” “I am scared,” “I am anxious,” “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” share it with someone so you can clear it out. Keeping it bottled up inside isn’t healthy for you or others.
When you use sentences such as these what you’re really saying is my total Being is afraid, my total identity is scared, my total self is anxious. ALL of you is that emotion. But that’s clearly not accurate. A part of you is that but not all of you.
Instead, try practicing what I call “The Third Person Removed” technique. Say the same sentence(s) but change the verb from first person singular (am) to third person singular (is): “I is afraid,” “I is scared,” “I is anxious,” “I doesn’t know what’s going to happen.”
The same ‘feeling’ is still there but by saying it in this new way you’ve now gained some perspective, some distance, from it. It’s not all of you. Your conscious awareness is watching those ‘feelings.’
This gives you some ‘space’ around the emotion. And from this ‘space’ you’ll notice you’re calmer and that you have more possibilities for life-affirming action.
A couple of days ago I had my weekly men’s group talk with my brothers-of-the-heart Loring and Randy. We talk every week, for an hour, about anything and everything. That morning’s conversation was about corona.
Each of us talked about our fears, our anxieties, and our uncertainties. It was so very good to just be heard….deeply. There was a feeling of ‘we’ rather than ‘I.’
We’d moved from ‘I doesn’t know what’s going to happen’ to ‘We doesn’t know what’s going to happen.’
And it was so good to just hear and feel that. “We doesn’t know.” That’s one of the truths of the moment.
The stability and certainty and ‘knowing’ we have about life is being overturned.
But, talking and sharing and being honest with each other…together…made it so very different than doing it alone.
And once all that was out of us we were in a clearer space.
I then suggested we do a five minute silent meditation which we did.
Then I asked each of us to speak about what contribution we could make to the current situation.
One man talked about the spiritual practice he does every day to bring healing energy to the world. Another man talked about how he will now do a version of that as well.
And I talked about how I will hold Heaven on Earth for all of Humanity as a stronger intention going forward.
I’m asking you to do the same exercise. Talk to others about what you’re going through so you know that they hear you and that you’ve been heard. Listen to others in the same way. Then talk about what you will contribute to a new positive, loving, sustainable, world. What simple, easy, concrete thing will you contribute.
Let me know.
With love,
Martin
The 4 suggestions above are my contribution to you and to this time. If you’re moved by one or more please share it with people. And, please add your own advice, your own wisdom. This is a time for We, a time for community, a time for compassion.
We’re going through a time in which humanity has had a ‘shock’.
Let’s use it compassionately, caringly, wisely to help co-create a much more life affirming future.
Martin Rutte
