Coping with Coronavirus: 7 Positive Ways to Respond

The world is experiencing a global pandemic. Many people have seen large drops in their investments. Some people have been laid off. Many fear for their safety and the safety of their loved ones. 

I want to offer a thought that may be controversial, but carries peace if you let it. This thought is: Nothing has gone wrong here. Many of you may be experiencing emotional pain that surpasses anything you have felt before, and I offer my deepest and most sincere compassion for what you are going through. But nothing has gone wrong here.

Some facts. We share the world with pathogens. With the increase in quantity and proximity of livestock and population density, scientists have been predicting another pandemic for many years now. Pandemics have happened before. There was the deadly bubonic plague from 1347 – 1351, smallpox in 1520, the Spanish flu from 1918-1919 which targeted healthy young adults, and more recently SARS, swine flu, ebola, and now coronavirus. 

I don’t say this to scare you; I say this to share the perspective that humans are incredibly resilient. We’ve been here before. We’ve faced and overcome many deadly pandemics, even without the tools of modern medicine that we have now. We’ve got this. 

In Brooke Castillo’s recent podcast Handling Chaos, she reminds us that nothing has gone wrong in our brains either (even though we may feel like we’re going nuts). The brain is behaving exactly as it was designed to behave. It’s doing its job to keep us safe. If you’re experiencing fear or anxiety that means your brain is working! It’s working to alert you of potential danger. 

It’s also important (for your sanity) to remember that the news outlets are just doing their job. First and foremost, they’re a business, not a public service. Their job is to feed you information that will get your attention and therefore boost their ratings. Right now the information they are presenting may elicit your natural fear response, make you feel like the information they provide is essential to your survival, to keep you coming back for more. This is done intentionally; network producers are smart. They get how the brain works. They use this knowledge to derive profit.

Nothing has gone wrong here.

 This outbreak is the perfect example of how science and spirituality can blend to provide peace and empowerment in a time of uncertainty. As with all circumstances, we have the power to choose to see this pandemic as the worst or best thing to ever happen to humanity. It’s your choice. Personally, I choose best.

Join me as we step through seven positive ways to deal with coronavirus.

Seven Positive Ways to Cope

1. Break it down to a neutral circumstance

Coronavirus, or COVID-19, is a circumstance. If you recall, circumstances are neutral. In situations like the one we are presently in in which our lives could be at risk, our brains often go to the worst case scenario. We keep telling ourselves scary stories – which result in scary feelings.

I want to run through an example of how to break these negative thought patterns down to a neutral circumstance. We want this because that’s where ground truth is. A neutral circumstance is a clear space to work from, free of negative emotion. From there, we can write a deliberate story.

Brene Brown, professor of social work at the University of Houston Graduate College, found five keywords that kept coming up in her resilience research participants. These five keywords are: The story I’m telling myself.

Let’s get real. What story are you telling yourself?

What’s the feeling you’re experiencing right now?

I’ll use my own personal example. For me, my predominant negative emotion is anxiety. 

Where do you feel it?

In my heart. 

What does it feel like?

Restless beating, which puts my mind on high alert. 

What’s the thought you’re thinking that’s causing the fear? What’s the story you’re telling yourself?

The story I’m telling myself looks something like this: I don’t know what’s going to happen. Everything could shut down, we could lose our jobs, or supplies could run low and our survival could be at risk. 

Now you do the exercise then come on back.

Getting at the story you’re telling yourself is the most important thing because this is where you have the power to make change. 

What’s actually happening right now?

As of yesterday, there were 16 confirmed coronavirus cases in my county and our investments were down 10%. Bingo. There’s the neutral circumstance. Fact without judgement.

From this neutral circumstance, I can write a deliberate story.

What’s your deliberate story?

Mine goes something like this: Scientists are working hard to understand the virus. Leaders are making the best decisions they know how to contain the virus. We will all be stronger and learn many great lessons because of this. 

2. Accept all that it might bring

With acceptance comes peace. Play with your brain for a minute. Let it run wild with its current fears and anxieties. Write down all the things it comes up with. Thank your brain for the list – for always looking out for you. Then go through it, one by one. Look each one in the face and make peace with it. 

Yes, people are dying and people will continue to die. This, too, is a neutral circumstance. It’s what we all buy into when we’re born. 

It’s important to note that accepting is not the same as condoning. By accepting the possibility that the worst – perhaps death – might happen, you are not wishing for it, you’re simply making peace with it as a potential outcome. You are removing it from your present moment and allowing it to be a fact of life, nothing more.

3. Deliberately choose how you will respond

I fell into the “react trap” at first. 

It’s so funny what our primitive brains do. In response to my anxiety, my inclination was to be like, “I don’t have time to stop and think! This is an exception!” No, I do. The initial response was just my brain doing its job. This is what the fight or flight response is. It’s intended for do or die moments – in which you don’t have time to stop and think. Not for moments like this one when your life is likely not in immediate danger. 

We have time to think. We have time to plan and deliberately decide an appropriate emotional approach. This is especially important during what is likely going to be a relative long, drawn out event. This is when we need to be managing our minds the most.

Reaction is impulsive. Response is intentional. You have a choice. Choose intentionally. Do you choose to live in fear with a scarcity mindset, or do you choose to live in love with an abundance mindset? Do you choose to only consider your own immediate needs, or do you choose to consider the needs of all?

Take time to really think about it. Then make a choice that aligns with your intention.

4. Boost your body’s immune system

Take practical steps to give your body the best chance at staying healthy. If you’re already sick, give your body the best chance of recovery. Follow the recommendations of your doctor and the medical community. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face.

Deepak Chopra, MD, has been posting a lot of great videos on how to stay healthy. I follow his pillars of wellbeing, which are: get enough natural sleep, meditate daily, move your body, cultivate healthy emotions (what we’re talking about in this article), eat fresh, real food, and one of his more recent pillars, biorhythms and grounding.

Instead of seeing the virus as something to fight off, I recommend focusing on your body’s wellbeing. It’s a subtle shift, but significant. It moves the focus from separation to inclusion. It’s a heightening of consciousness. We aren’t fighting off and killing something, we’re holding our bodies in health and love and light, a space where viruses are incapable of defeating us.

5. Consider more plant-based foods

Pathogens usually start in animals and then mutate to infect humans. This happens when large quantities of livestock (which can be any animal, not just cows) and humans are in close proximity. The current high level of demand for meat that exists worldwide is the main reason that these conditions exist.

I feel inclined to call out a very simple and obvious solution: eat less meat. 

There are many amazing people working to improve the conditions of life for animals and the planet; this is a passion of mine, but not my work so I will leave it as simply a suggestion. If you’d like more information, I recommend checking out Suzy Cameron’s One Meal A Day, or if you’re ready to get real, check out the documentary Forks Over Knives, now on Netflix.

6. Use this as a powerful time of reflection

I welcome you to check out my meditation on how to cope with coronavirus where we release fear and anxiety and embrace gratitude and love. This is an incredibly powerful time on our planet to reflect. Many of us are finding ourselves with ample time at home, so no excuses. 

This time of quarantine and social distancing may have your mind driving you to scrape and claw for every scrap of social media you can get your hands on in order to feel “connected.” Maybe now is actually the perfect time to put that down for a bit, and focus on connecting with yourself and the people around you in your own home.

Use this precious time that is here because it is part of the awakening consciousness of humanity. 

Eckhart Tolle

Use this situation to gain a deep appreciation for how interconnected the world is. How something that happens on the other side of the world can have massive impacts on our daily lives, in just a matter of weeks. 

Use this situation to gain insight into how interdependent we are. How I’m dependent on the grocery store and all the people who work there, who are dependent on the food supply chains and the farmers who grow the crops. How if one person suffers, if one business shuts down, it causes ripple effects for many others. 

Use this situation to find gratitude for all the things you have in your life. Brene Brown talks about how when things go bad, it’s the everyday moments that people long for. Be grateful for your everyday moments.

7. Decide that this situation is going to serve you and the world

We are all in this together. No human is untouched by the world’s current events. That’s powerful. Feel the power of every mind focused on this one event. There’s so much we’re going to learn from this. So much growth to be had.

Make a decision, right now. Decide whether this is going to serve you. Decide whether this is going to serve the world. Then think, speak, and behave accordingly.

We’ve been here before. We’ll be here again. You have everything you need within you to come out the other end of this a better, healthier, happier, more compassionate and grateful human being. 

Decide.

I’d love to hear what you think about this article. Leave a comment below or hit me up. Thanks for visiting, see you back here soon!