Sense & Sensibility

How many times after boarding a plane have you been told to place a mask over your mouth first? That safety instruction can be disregarded as inconsequential until you are faced with a real emergency and then it’s a painful but logical course of action. In a depressed cabin, if it’s not followed, the human experience becomes one of disorientation, loss of vision caused by a swift and perilous drop of oxygen-saturation levels- a loss of consciousness.

In real life, in our current, pedestrian life, people are also dying because others are not wearing masks.

This story has had many titles. The plague, the Spanish flu, AIDS, Ebola, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. But, in its essence, the plot is the same.

There are so many things we can do right now to support ourselves through this crisis. Accessing resiliency and hope can make a big difference. Developing self-compassion and meditating will activate calming centers that also support internal balance. I have so many things to list that can help others find hope in crisis.

I have found that the best practice is to create. I started working on a video yesterday and I immediately felt calm. Doing something creative can deactivate stress centers. I notice in myself when they are deactivated I feel more myself and at peace; whereas before it was overwhelming thinking of how I had to learn this new video program. When I stopped listening to tutorials and followed my own intuition I achieved my goal. That may not work for everyone, but it’s how I learn best.

To give the love you give to others and turn in right back into yourself is powerful. Then if you think of your goal as a delight that you’re going to learn and master. It transforms into a sweet tackle.

I keep thinking that this time is what Europeans felt during WWII. Without a moment to lose. Life became more precious. And when this ends, I keep thinking it will be like the sailor who grabbed an unknown Nurse and kissed her on the streets of New York.

There will always be naysayers who just want the end to arrive, never looking at the present. That is an immature way to not face reality. A shallow way of being, by not perceiving there is more than meets the eye. And there are those who now have to look beyond their own lives, perhaps for the first time. The selfishness of yesterday that hoarded frozen foods and toilet paper may have developed a better sense of not serving their own needs but seeing others for the first time. They may have compassion in the future.

Epidemics die out with collective action or with the last victim. The choice is yours and is best made alone. It is free, but whatever you chose, be aware: The sun will shine, and everyone will be in a hurry to go nowhere, and children will squabble in playgrounds again. Dreams and plans are not lost, just shelved, until later when this ends.

And when this story ends, its ending is an opportunity to make this the greatest love story in history. Stories so powerful that its heroes did not touch, nor kiss, locked themselves in, in total freedom, and covered their faces.

And it will be a reminder that something beautiful will emerge from this growth, the growth of human evolution.