Be the Paradise Isle in the World’s Stormy Sea
Sometimes you look at the world around you through the window of your TV screen, computer, or phone, and it seems like there’s a hurricane going on out there. Debris is being flung around by the winds of hatred, politics, war, pollution, and disease. You feel like it must be the end. We’re all going to die. Disney is closed. Baseball is cancelled. Tom Hanks has “the virus,” and there’s no more toilet paper. This is it. The apocalypse is now.
Is it, though?
No, of course not. Humanity has survived ice ages and plagues and worse. It will survive this. Of course we need to stay abreast of the news, so we know what to do. And besides, it would be impossible not to. This is compelling stuff. It’s had to look away. But we have to look away because we know that what you focus on is what you attract. And the way I’ve been blued to the 24-hour news channels lately ought to ensure I have Covid-19 before the weekend is out.
Fortunately, Law of Attraction has a bit of a delay built into it. (The hell you say!) Yes, folks, this is one time you can be very glad that what you focus on doesn’t appear immediately. Gives us time to adjust the dial.
It's more important now than ever...
Tending to your vibration, your mental and emotional well being, focus, expectation and beliefs, is more important now than ever. It’s every bit as important as tending to your health right now. Because you can take all the precautions in recommended by the experts, and if it’s your focus, you’ll still contract it. Or, you can take none of them, focus on other things, and never get the illness, or if you do, it’ll be mild.
The focus of your mind is more important than washing hands, wearing masks, or social isolation. It’s your number one most powerful preventative tool.
Make Home Your Haven
This is a perfect opportunity to put your focus on your immediate surroundings. If you and your family are staying home to prevent spread, then make home the best, most fun, most interesting space imaginable. And get your focus on positive, upbeat things. Create a spa environment in your home. Use your imagination to change things up. Make your home the paradise isle in the world’s stormy sea.
Here are some suggestions from someone who lives and works at home, and loves being “stuck” here.
Live alone or with another adult?
Take long hot soaks in the tub with incense and candles and music.
Wear your favorite robe all day if you want. And cozy slippers
Practice yoga.
Meditate daily.
Give yourself a manicure and/or a pedicure.
Drink herbal tea and lots of water.
Write blog and journal posts.
Read. Don’t let a day go by without reading something wonderful, uplifting, entertaining.
Draw or paint.
Try any other hobby you’ve been putting off.
Binge watch new series, movies, documentaries, stand-up comedy. Anything but constant news.
Maybe try reading your news online (at a reputable news source like The NY Times) so you can get what you need and more easily look away once you have.
Take long walks if you can. Time outside is vital to our well being. Just don’t go in crowded places.
There are countless courses and classes you can take online. Pick something you’ve always wanted to learn and learn it.
There are countless workout and exercise programs online too!
Live with kids?
This is going to be harder for children. My grandkids’ sports have all cancelled for the season. The kids get so much from sports and from attending school. All the social interaction and drama. Teens in particular are going to think it’s the end of the world. Kids need exercise to
Start a sport at home. Have a daily basketball or soccer or baseball game in the back yard.
Play tag and hide-and-seek.
Build that fort or tree house they’ve been asking for.
Subscribe to some new streaming services. If you can’t afford that, know that every single service offers a free trial periods of a week or two, so you could do free trials back to back. Just be sure to binge watch any series so you get it finished before your trial ends. That would be frustrating.
Reading is important for the kids too! Establish family reading time, or read aloud, or let the kids take turns reading aloud.
There are online lessons, probably mandatory ones if school is closed. So those will fill some time.
Relax the rules and limitations on things like video games. Let them have as much fun as they possibly can.
Kids love cooking. You could institute a family cooking class, or take turns making meals. Let the kids do things they normally don’t get to do to keep life interesting.
Nature walks! Take a book or ebook with photos and do a nature walk to identify local weeds and trees or birds and wildlife. If you don’t have a book, do the walk anyway, and gather samples of plants to bring home and identify on the internet.
Board Games!
Sofa forts!
Check with experts, by I think if parts of my family are quarantined in their home for 2 weeks and I am quarantined in my home for 2 weeks, and none of us get sick, then we’re safe (as long as we have been home and not exposed to others all that time.) Once the two weeks are passed, it’s probably safe to resume visits with each other. That’s my plan anyway. I can go to their house and they can come to my house to break things up.
Flip your perspective
Rather than looking at the enforced down time with dread, try to flip the inconvenience upside down and see it as an opportunity instead. Be happy we live in a time when we can order almost anything we need online. Appreciate the miracle that is the internet, which allows us to stay in touch with everyone we know, even if we can’t see them in person. Be glad we have such advanced science that we have tests and treatments for almost every disease that comes along.
I remember old Granny telling me how whooping cough came through town, and how the mothers were completely helpless against it. There was nothing you could do but hold your child and pray she wouldn’t cough herself to death. Every day, Granny said, another neighbor would lose a child. It was terrifying. I could see the fear return to her eyes as she told me the story, and she was in her nineties at the time. It was like a big black cloud was just moving from house to house, taking children. All you could do was wait it out.
We don’t have that today. We have advanced science, and top notch medical clinics and hospitals, doctors and nurses. We have vaccines against whooping cough (pertussis,) and smallpox and polio–diseases that used to ravage us. We have come a long way!
Things are far, far, FAR better for us today than they were for our grandparents and great grandparents. Notice that. Appreciate that.
There are other positives here too.
Think of the expansion!
We are living in turbulent times in the western world. But as we know the bigger the contrast, the bigger the growth we take from it, and the better the outcome on the other side of it.
The contrast we’re living right now, not just over this virus, but in so many areas from climate to corruption, is rocket fuel for our growth as a people. This works the same way our own individual troubles do. They are always propelling us to grow past them, into the solutions, where we find ourselves in a better place than we were before the problem. This is that, only on a global scale. As we move past this outbreak, shifting our focus to the cure, to the vaccine, to the eradication of it, we are going to see vast improvements over where we were before it came. Cooperation between nations will be mended and strengthened. Medical science will have advanced. We as a society will have this response down, so if another, far deadlier strain ever comes along, we’ll be able to react rapidly. We’ll know what to do. We’ll have learned what to do because of Covid-19. We might even come closer as families, as communities, as towns and cities, counties and states. As a nation.
Sometimes it takes a common enemy to bring people together. Maybe Covid-19 is providing that service to us as we speak. We certainly need to come together over something. Could this be it?
It’s always darkest before the dawn. And the darker the night, the brighter the sunrise.
Let’s watch for signs that is happening FOR us instead of TO us. Let’s help each other through this as much as we can, and be on the lookout for its countless silver linings.
I guarantee you, the spring and summer of 2020 are going to be filled with silver linings. You’ll see them, too! But only if you look for them, instead of looking for things to worry about.
Hang in there. We’ll continue supporting your spirit from here, so stay tuned.