A Mindful Path Through The Crisis: Part 1

15 Apr A Mindful Path Through The Crisis: Part 1

Learn more on emotional coping and connect to higher self in this difficult wave of time

In my 13 years of living in Australia with my small family, and working as a Psychologist, I never imagined witnessing the struggles that we have faced right from the beginning of this year; the bushfires, from the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020, and now the world-wide corona virus. For many of us, we would not have anticipated experiencing such events that in a matter of weeks would begin to be classified as pandemics and unprecedented natural disasters.

When such significant events occur, our human experience is tested in many ways.

One of these ways is through the plethora of feelings that we are now experiencing. We experience fear and in those moments search for feelings of safety. We begin to question whether we will be ok? We worry about the lack of available and essential resources such as food, water and medication; and in our fear and worry we begin to obsess over commodities such as toilet paper!

We also worry about the future, and all the uncertainties that we now face, as a result from the crisis.

In addition to those worries and uncertainties about ourselves we worry about our family, their health and wellbeing; we have to learn to deal with, and overcome, disappointments and losses in our jobs, with our finances, when facing government inaction, the cancellation of events and the list goes on.

As people we are cursed with falling into the ‘what if’ trap. When facing the prospect of losing control and the potential of catastrophic events occurring our minds become our biggest enemy; we begin to think irrational thoughts and act out on irrational compulsions. An example of this that we have witnessed recently has come in the form of compulsive over-shopping, aggressive and at times dangerous conflicts taking place in public domains, in schools and homes, and what otherwise would have been harmonious working systems.

Everything around us seems to emanate doom and gloom. A feeling that is further exacerbated by the mixed messages that come our way from the media, and more importantly, by our many social groups. At this point rational thought disappears and we begin to feel smothered by all the overwhelming emotions and opinions coming our way from every direction.

The question then is, how do we make sense of all this? And, in what ways, does going through such a magnitude of events impact our lives?

The hardest thing to realise in our life is that there isn’t always an answer as to why we are going through hard times, or even a logical explanation as to why certain crisis befall us. However, what we can, and should try to, take away from this situation is that it is raising our higher conscious awareness. It is giving us all the opportunity to awaken to greater levels of insights and wisdom collectively.

In life, grief and loss is inevitable, but how we deal with our internal emotional suffering optional. It is important to always remember that we have a choice of when and if we create more suffering within us.

Life, to many people, is nothing but living in a routine, and as people we feel the most comfortable when we know what to expect. Yet life guarantees only one thing for everyone, and that is that life is in a constant state of evolving and changing.

Take this current Covid-19 situation and its widespread nature. From being a problem in another country it has now affected us in unprecedented ways. It brought on a sudden and unexpected change to our otherwise orderly life. It has forced us to evolve and grow and begin to think about ourselves and our ways of life in a new light.

Below are a few important values what we can use to evolve, expand and strengthen our human spirit. These will help you work on lessening any internal suffering, and help you learn to work through fear, anxiety, frustration, disappointment and hopelessness especially when the outside world appears chaotic and unpredictable.

Resilience:

These events are testing our patience, our capacity to be hopeful while being cautious. We have possibly never dealt with such greater impacts to our day-to-day living; never had to adapt to restrictions and limitations; and never had to maintain such stringent levels of hygiene and care for the wider community. It’s pushing us to develop a stronger emotional trampoline that we can bounce on! Growing resilience is ought to give us a feeling of empowerment and courage during this helpless situation. We will become more adaptable, more patient, more embracing of change and certainly more brave!

Gratitude:

When we get caught up living within the four walls of our routine mundane-ness, we perhaps become more self-absorbed and take many things around us for granted. Our egos have been meshed with a sense of entitlement and we haven’t expressed much gratitude of what we do have, and continue to receive, in abundance. Things such as resources, services, relationships and so much more. It’s important to reflect on if we have missed on taking a moment to appreciate and be grateful for what we have now. Let’s be grateful more, appreciate more and value more our existence and what we receive! Gratitude is the opposite of fear.

Generosity of Spirit:

Have we missed connecting with kindness, warmth and love with those who matter? Have we missed showing compassion and real support that we as humans are capable of doing? We can be so much more generous and open with our hearts. This now is another opportunity for us to shine that spirit within us with the people we love, our neighbours, friends, the nurses and doctors who are in the frontline, the elderly and the vulnerable people in our society. In this time of uncertainty, we can truly be kind and compassionate wholeheartedly.

In part 2 of the blog series, I will walk you through some ways of coping emotionally with this crisis.