How To Be Emotionally Hygienic In These Amazing Times

More than ever before we need to mind our mind. The emotional experience is not to the virus but to the fear reaction of the masses. During this fascinating time in human history, like any other time we are living out our narrative, our story, in other words, the meaning we are giving our experiences. 

Uncertainty has always played a part in our chosen narrative. The only difference at the moment is that we are experiencing an acute dose of uncertainty. Most, if not, all of us have experienced uncertainty in our lives. In the form of health, relationship break ups, the end of a career, the beginning of a new career, starting a business and so on.

Power of Negative Visualisation.

Just this morning I went for a walk with my wife around our local river. I said to my wife this could be SO much worse!!!! I shared with her how my masseuse (Hi Cass!) was sharing with me how a woman she knows, a few years back had a double mastectomy and recovered from breast cancer. About five weeks ago she was getting strange pains in her lower back. Like most new pain for most people, we tend to ignore it, perhaps just justify how it will go away and continue on. Her pain was intensifying by the day.

A couple of medical visits later she discovered her cancer had returned. Back to chemo back to the horribleness of that. Two weeks into her treatment, as tough as this is, she begins feeling tired, achy and flu-like symptoms. Paranoia came fast, and she went and got tested for coronavirus. Much to her relief, she tested negative, she had an intense hit of influenza A. Couple of days later she finds herself in a hospital with cancer and influenza A.

I said to my wife….experience that in your imagination as our experience and then start thinking of the ripple effects of that on our family and so on. That is really tough!! Now let’s bring ourselves back to this very moment now….us walking around a beautiful river, full of life and vitality! How good does that feel. Suddenly, in the midst of this pandemic, we are feeling good, feeling relieved! We are enjoying the story we are creating, expressed as our lives.

I practice this mode of gratitude as much as I can, even with little things. As we were leaving home to go for this walk, I closed the front door and for a second I thought I locked the keys in the house. Much to my relief, I hadn’t as I saw them hanging off the outside lock of the door. I then imagined how different my morning would have been, going next door to us their phone to call a locksmith and so on…let alone the cost. I was suddenly grateful for the fact that we were just hopping into our car and down to the river for a walk.

Enjoying THIS Moment. (The Dreaded What If Question)    

Most emotional stress is experienced in our imagination. That is it is being experienced in our future timeline. Our future timeline does not exist except for in our imagination. The closer your focus is to this very moment the more at peace and good you will feel.. The more our focus shifts away from this moment and into a future the more stress we may feel. Most people really do themselves no emotional favours by asking the dreaded what-if question. A question which causes us to start solving a problem we don’t even have. This, of course, takes us away from the current moment and what is here to be enjoyed. For others, this is an unconscious strategy to avoid taking responsibility for the problems they do have in real now time.

Nocebo.

Perhaps you have heard of the placebo effect. This is when we have a positive expectation that we will get better form say a sugar pill we believe will help resolve our situation. A nocebo is the opposite. This when we come to harm due to our negative expectations via the power of our beliefs.

Expecting that our lives are turning to shit, or that the world is coming to an end, focusing on anything that has intense negative expectations will be experienced as negative emotions which of course completely colour all our experiences.

Unchecked our emotions can become slaves to our expectations. If our narrative is negative or driven by fear this affects our expectations within our life situation. Remember whichever road you take with expectations, positive or negative, you are right.

The point being here is that we have a choice to live in a narrative that eases our fear, or live in one that exacerbates that fear. “Joe aren’t we living in denial of reality if we immerse in some fantasy that everything is ok?” Great question. The short answer is no. The longer answer is, how do you know what is true and not true. We all have an array of options of what we choose to be true for us.

We can choose the mainstream narrative immersed in mainstream fear. This tends to be riddled in sensationalised headlines trying to predict the future. We are living in extraordinary unprecedented times. This means nobody knows the future. You can choose to live Dr Thomas Cowan’s narrative who defined a virus as the rubbish our cells excrete. This is caused by all kinds of invisible range of waves. He claims that the role our of 5G is directly affecting our cells which in turn affect what they excrete, in this case, this virus. He says that in 1918 during the flu epidemic this happened because of the introduction of radio waves.

Now I don’t know if this is true, what I believe is beside the point because if this narrative feels better, go with it. Perhaps you may ride the narrative which suggests that this virus is a form of bioweapon. Perhaps you may want to follow the narrative of how we are moving from a democracy to a technocracy where we will be controlled by the scientists who will control how we love for the rest pf our lives….these are a handful of many narratives we can choose from. They may all be right, they may all have their own agendas. Notice that all these narratives also carry with them a certain imagined future.

Here’s a fact. To discover the truth of any of these narratives are you prepared to sacrifice this lifetime in dedication to one of these narratives? Personally, I’m not. I see my narrative as one who is here to love, to give and to grow. To me, this is what it means to be a professional human being. To be an example of love, kindness and compassion to all I meet.

Life is too short. The day we realise our lives are not about us but about others is the day we truly start to live.

Ironically this whole situation is not about us.  Just today I saw this story from a mentor of mine.

A man sought out a respected old sage and said, “O wise one, I would like to know what heaven and hell are like.”

The sage led the man to two doors. He opened one of the doors, and the man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table. In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew, which smelled delicious and made the man’s mouth water.

The people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms. Each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful, but because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths.

The man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The wise man said, “You have seen hell.”

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew that made the man’s mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons strapped to their arms, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking.

The man said, “I don’t understand!”

“It is simple,” said his venerable guide. “It requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other, while the greedy think only of themselves”

Fear fuels the selfish greed. Love serves and creates a narrative that feels good and serves others well.