Integritus Prime

If you’re anything like me, you are painfully aware that this pandemic is wreaking havoc in several parts of the world. Italy and New York come to mind. We are saturated with the news, social media memes, and everyone’s mounting frustration with working from home (WHM) and home schooling. The list of gripes is long. The loss of life is alarming. However, the novel coronavirus is also here to test us in a number of ways. Here are 5 of those ways:

1. Emotional overwhelm: we are feeling panic, anxiety, frustration, worry, and a host of other emotions as we witness the pandemic devastating so many lives and disrupting even more. It feels a bit surreal to see all those numbers on a chart but then when it happens to someone we know, the reality of the situation begins to sink in. We are being challenged to manage our emotions.
2. Spatial disruption: We are working from home and homeschooling our children, feeling cramped and saturated, or stuck alone and feeling lonely. We are suddenly in a different paradigm where our usual entertainments and escapes don’t work: sports, movies, vacations, sleepovers, you name it. Work, life, and leisure now require a deeper investigation.
3. Intelligence or habit: As the pandemic spreads globally, we are called upon to change many habits in various realms of our lives, and quickly: hygiene, work, education, and social relationships. This is really difficult because even though we may know what to do, we might have ingrained habits and social norms that get in the way of doing the right things. We must face this challenge head on and act swiftly. Stay tuned for how, via a new set of conversations in our ongoing Beyond Medicine series.
4. Future uncertainty: Even though if we pause to think about it, the future is inherently uncertain and unknown, now we have many more signs of it: unemployment, stock market volatility, impending recession, and unclear pathways for businesses, schools, and many other institutions. We are being asked to not only embrace this uncertainty, but to step up and create a safer future.
5. The inner relationship: Ultimately, this time calls us to look inward and answer the philosophical questions that we may typically run from or put off: “Who am I? What do I want? What am I doing here? What will I do? What is my purpose?” As we sit with these questions, we can begin to find new ways of being through our meditative practices, and then extend that self-awareness outward to our social, economic, environmental, and other systems. The trick is to actually do it, not hide from this call.

It is time for deeper awareness and understanding about how we live and how to live in ways that are more in alignment with our true selves and in harmony with Nature. Let’s take this one day at a time and ask ourselves if we can love ourselves and each other through this. This is the ultimate test of love. Love means taking precautions for self, loved ones, and everyone else. Love means learning new habits and forsaking harmful ones. Love will take us through to the other side with a new social order that prioritizes caregivers who are at the front lines saving lives, and a new set of goals that value life over stuff. Stay alert, the awakening is here.