I hear the term “unprecedented” everywhere. How unimaginable this current happening is. How unimaginable people’s subsequent reactions to it are. 

I hear panic and fear, not just of the virus, but of “Others” – the panic shoppers, the ignores of social distancing rules, the Selfish – people who are not “us”. 

I hear this is a power and money making exercise by malevolent forces – some unidentified and mysterious.

I hear about new state (police) online systems for neighbours to report on neighbours for not following the government guidelines, spreading fear and suspicion between neighbours and communities. 

No wonder we are stressed out! And anxious as hell. And upset. 

But this coronavirus situation that we are in feels like it is off the Richter scale of awful.

All the essential ingredients…

The media and chatter around C-19 is a smorgasbord/buffet for our existential fears. It has all of the key psychological ingredients to grab our attention and focus – fear of death, illness, scarcity, fear of others, othering, uncertainty, fear of getting it, no longer belonging, all the psychological angles needed to spark and stoke the flames of terror in our collective internal worlds.

Wired for danger…

And in this state of fear, we go searching for certainty, for some kind of reassurance in information. In data. In news media – The News headlines. In what others around us are talking about.

The thing is, we humans are predisposed to engage with and remember the stories and media of fear. It is our human nature to scan for that which may indicate that harm is coming, so we are primed to to scan for and be engaged by threat, and it is the sensational, fear based stories. which grab our attention and imagination.

So if you are seeking information to help you feel calmer about this situation, don’t go straight to The News headlines, or any news media right now, because the threat stories there will far outweigh any less fear based information, and so too with the narratives you are likely to remember and carry with you through the rest of the day. 

Our internal worlds of C19…

And we don’t even need factual information to get going! We merely need a suggestion of threat to spark our imagination into action to run the movies of  imagination of our inner worlds.

That internal understanding, that internal picture of the world with C19, is being fuelled and built by these stories. And that internal understanding includes a picture of a flavour of human nature that exists within it.

These stories are irresistible to us. And the more we consume, the more heightened the danger appears.

Coupled with the recent devastating fires in Australia, the accelerating damage to our environment, the constant threat of terrorism, and all the rest of it, it would seem like we live in a world of exponentially bad and shitty people. 

A world with an accelerating countdown timer of Doom.

A kind of apocalypse…

But the thing is, this is not an apocalypse.

This is us being human

Feeling this way is not some weakness of ours, or some failure. It is all just a part of our humanness, a part of the experience it is to be human.

The stories we read feed into our fears – our natural, normal, existential fears. Coronavirus is a reminder that we’re all just humans grappling with human existential stuff.

Coronavirus or no coronavirus, those fears are there anyway. And they are a part of our humanity.

But there are other perspectives to what is taking place here.

Why does this feel so bad?

There is so much information to take in, and our human minds can only process so much of that. If we exclusively feed our minds with fear and threat and disaster, it will not have a balanced picture of the situation. It will only see disaster. 

And the picture we build inside can mislead us about the humans around us. The others with whom we share this living experience. The collective to which we ourselves belong.

Separate and divide – disconnecting our belonging

I am not saying that the stories or the situation are untrue or not important, or to ignore what is happening, or to stuff any of the feelings down, but when we continually feed ourselves threat based stories only, we distract ourselves from the whole picture. And continually putting focus on “Others” – whether they be bulk buyers, or conservatives or politicians – we essentially separate and divide ourselves.

They no longer belong to who your sense of “people like you” includes.

And in doing so, we also alienate ourselves – and we no longer belong – to the global collective. We, together, are no longer connected together.

Maybe this disconnected world we suddenly find ourselves in seems kinda mad and crazy. Too much for us…could this disconnected world too much for us?

The nature of us…

And what could our perceptions of the nature of “others” message to us about our own human nature? Do we have the potential for this “badness” too? This destruction?

Or is that idea too much to bear? Could the idea of we ourselves contributing to this shitstorm world be too much to hold? Such that we might we defend against ever considering this possibility? Maybe by making others bad? By making “society” the problem?

The act of “Othering”

When we are getting busy blaming “others” – whether that be bulk shoppers, open-mouthed coughers, crappy governments, or vaccine pushers – we separate and divide ourselves, in effect we create a mechanism to bypass the need to look at the responsibility and the changes we need to make ourselves.

We distract ourselves from seeing the wholeness of what is really here. What is really here for us, as individuals. The issues we individually ourselves are faced with in our humanness.

And this disables us from seeing and taking action on the things that really need to be seen and done.

We need to talk about death

When we know so definitely that so many people are going to die, and that apart from their birth, this “event” is going to be the most important journey in their lives, we have completely failed to have any kind of conversation about how we might facilitate this in the best way possible.

What is the transition from between sickness to death for C19? What does that look like?  

That might mean a form of special palliative care, it might mean making family visitation a priority at a societal level, or if nothing else, at least acknowledging it. Instead we completely cover it up by separating it up into 1) prevention of death, 2) a numerical “death toll”. 

A death, or “death toll” (a term constantly being used by the Irish media) is not just a number of bodies. A death toll is a number of experiences of individuals. A fairly significant experience. And families left behind to process that experience for themselves. 

By not ever talking about it, we are in effect, defending against it, through bypassing it.

Death is around us. But it always was. It is speakable, and it is necessary to speak about it.

A heightened awareness 

This feels like a very “heightened” time. Further magnified because of its unspeakable nature.

What we are living is a heightened awareness of the tension between life and death.

The current climate brings this life reality – impermanence – to the fore, in a way for many people, they have not experienced before. Where our grandparents’ generations experienced world wars, for many of us this is our generation’s first experience of such an immediate catastrophic event on a global scale. The immediacy of the event is the call to action. 

Underneath the surface, we are being faced with core existential issues.

For many of us, this heightened awareness can be a time of existential questioning. 

This special existential time

This is a special time.

This awareness of the tension between life and death can bring us into a most sacred space – a birthing junction of newness.

How are you going to use it?

Can you live your life from a place of Creator? Or will you stay stuck in the role of passive Victim?

How are you going to spend this moment?

This special time is a limited time.  And it will pass. And even though it might not seem like it right now, the awareness that this brings will pass when it is over. You will not remember how this feels exactly. 

How are you going to spend this time of heightened awareness? 

What are the stories of this world that you will spend your precious and limited attention on?

And what is the picture of the world you will leave with? And of the other human beings you share this most precious and limited place and time with?

Will you come out of this with your lasting picture of the world and of the other human beings you share this limited place and time with, painted as a picture of badness and mistrust. Of disappointment and anger and frustration?

Will you focus on what “society” should learn, or on the badness of malevolent forces and our powerlessness, or will you explore what you might be able to create and contribute? 

Could this possibly be a time where us human beings have been brought closer together than ever?

What changes are you going to make? (Or affirmations will you gain to keep doing?)

What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up? Even when it is inconvenient? Or more expensive? Or really difficult?

Or are you wanting society to make it easy for you (to be what you believe will make you a better person)?

What are you going spend your precious energy and focus on?

This could be over quicker than you realise

Decide now what you are willing to do now to create those changes.

And start! Right now! 

Because humans are spectacularly bad at estimating how quickly time passes, and this moment could all be over a lot faster than you might be imagining.