I’d like to share with you the top three reasons why the virus is fanning your fears and what you can do about them. As we overcome the old resistance and conditioning of your subconscious mind’s fears worries and concerns you will embrace and live a life of joy, peace and fulfillment.
Let’s start with the number three reason why your fears are fan by this present-day circumstance. This fear occurs because you have within you habit patterns. That's right, habit patterns.
Habits are created by your subconscious mind, so this part of you creates habits to keep you the same. When there's some disruption in your life it interferes with your habits and creates lower-level fears and background anxieties. You are probably familiar with wanting to stop bad habits like overeating, smoking, drinking, gambling and others that keep you both physically and emotionally connected with old behaviors. When you try to change it triggers anxieties and brings up the self-sabotage of your subconscious mind that created these habits in the first place.
Habits can also be healthier and keep you on track such as cooking meals at a certain time, going to work, getting the kids ready for school, and so much more. These habits are your daily life, but they are still habits because you tend to do them on autopilot. Your subconscious mind has set them up to flow as smoothly as possible and keep you on track.
All of that is being severely challenged now so naturally you experience anxiety because you can’t do all that once felt so normal and natural. When either you or an outside force tries to change your habits, what is essential for you to remain calm, healthy and in control is your mindset.
It is essential that your subconscious believes that you are still in control, to a great degree, and that the disruption is minimal in the grand scheme. That you will do just fine and realize it's only a matter of time before you will re-establish healthy patterns once again. Instead take the longer perspective as this mindset helps you feel more in control despite the outer changes.
The more relaxed you are the better you will do. Realize you do still have control over some healthy habits like eating healthy foods, exercise, brushing your teeth cooking, cleaning, shopping and more. You can do these well enough to get by in the short term. When done from a healthier state of mind your subconscious will be more calm, trusting and relaxed.
Which brings us to the number two reason the virus is disrupting us is that old deeper, superstitious fears are stimulated about not being in control over an unseen force. We can't see, hear or sense the virus and our subconscious feels totally out of control. Triggering our fears at this deep level will actively affect your daily life and even overcome your rational thought process.
Because your adversary isn’t a person, a hostile government, or any visible object your senses are ineffective. Your subconscious mind is concerned about self-preservation and is designed to protect you against any kind of threat, but still requires knowledge as to how to best deal with the threat.
With this virus it's an entirely different nature for you can only see its effects, not the actual thing. Yes, you may see photos of drawings on the news about the virus but you don't actually ever see it attack you. You can be trusting and thinking that things are going to be fine and suddenly it has you.
Your subconscious is protected from threats by your senses, what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell. It senses your environment to keep you safe. None of these early warning tools of your senses have any effect upon the microbe. It can’t be personalized or compartmentalized. It’s a fear of the unknown.
What you can do is recognize your body also has a built-in system for protection, and even though you may not be able to know it’s there, your body has a powerful defense mechanism already set up for self-preservation.
Yes, your body has the immune system that can be a powerful tool for health. This is a great time to help your immune system be as effective as possible. When you eat well, exercise, drink water, reduce stress and more you a giving your immune system support to do its job.
It’s a great time to stop unhealthy habits that compromise your immune system and make you even more susceptible to the virus. Stop smoking, drink less or quit alcohol and drug use, and take other steps to support your best defense - your immune system. It is also powerful and effective to become as emotionally healthy as possible by doing the healthy things you love to do like reading, journaling, connecting with others by phone or email, healthy practices like meditation and yoga, exercising, renewing your hobbies and taking the time to get out in nature.
That’s right. Nothing helps you to reconnect with your deeper, more intrinsically valuable inner being than experiencing nature with a quiet mind. Henry David Thoreau said that in wildness is the preservation of the world. Renew your own inner wildness beyond the workings and creation of human beings. So many things we create as people are just not that important. Often our creations become our prisons.
What really matters is to make the time to keep as healthy as possible and you'll have a greater ability to protect you from these unseen enemies. The unknown, unsettling threats will seem less powerful and less fearful. You will be able to deal with them more effectively.
Okay. This brings us to the number one reason why your fears are fanned by this present-day challenge and that is because you have within you fight or flight reactions.
That’s right. Multiple thousands of years of inner programming has created this fight or flight response which is focused almost solely on short-term fears caused by immediate disturbances to situations.
These fight or flight reactions are your subconscious mind’s reaction to fear itself in any form. It triggers an immediate reaction below your level of conscious awareness or control. Your psyche is designed to respond whether it's a life-threatening disease, an accident, or outer threat. You don't think about what to do… it reacts. It's instinctive.
When you do have time to think you will discover that your thoughts are influenced by this fear to a degree that often prevents rational thought. This reaction mentality overwhelms the rational mind.
The host of NPR's “Hidden Brain”, Shankar Vedantam, recently discussed how the brain is designed to react to immediate threats using this fight or flight mentality. He pointed out how we become irrational in such circumstances by reminding us that 1300 people die every day from cigarette smoking related illnesses. 480,000 people every year. Yet cigarettes are still legal and people continue to kill themselves potentially even harm their children slowly but surely with smoking.
My parents smoked throughout all the time I lived it home. Until I left for college, I spent 20 years in the home with them. Sadly, both of them died from lung cancer. I discovered that I had developed an allergic reaction to cigarette smoke and my lungs were damaged to a degree that anytime I had a common cold, it would take weeks for me to stop coughing.
Your brain reacts to immediate threats even though they may be actually less deadly than others we constantly ignore, even though we are more likely to die, though, not right now, from them. These long-term issues with our health make us very susceptible to the virus.
The Center for Disease Control, with which you are now very much familiar, revealed that two years ago was a very bad year for the common flu and between 60,000 to 70,000 Americans died during December through mid-April.
Yet no one decided to do anything about those deaths. Was there panic about the flu microbe? I didn’t hear about it. Just information to get the flu shot. Of course, this present-day virus is more contagious, but why didn’t we go into lockdown over 70,000 potential deaths?
Which bring up the obvious fact that the media has a huge role to play in what is or isn’t a short- term threat. In whether or not your fight or flight reactions are triggered what others determine is a present-day threat.
Despite all this, wouldn’t it be great if we could recognize, without triggering the fight or flight reaction, that relying upon short term, immediate threats are not the way to healthily and intelligently approach the best course of action?
That if we saw the dangers of smoking, we could save 480,000 deaths every year. Or we could drink less and reduce 88,000 alcohol-related deaths each year.
And here’s the big one. Poor diet accounts for 678,000 deaths each year. That’s nearly 57,000 deaths each month! Why doesn’t that trigger your instinctual fears, your fight or flight mentality? You guessed it…because it isn’t a current threat. It’s a long term one.
All together, these three account for 1.2 million deaths every year. The worst flu in history, the Spanish Flu of 1918, killed about 700,000 people. Yet still these deaths are just over ½ of everyone who die from mostly preventable, personal choices. Do you see how fears created by short term reactions focus can take our focus away from at least equally deadly challenges? How erroneous it is to let the fight or flight mentality fueled by ourselves and others to determine our lives?
Should we be concerned about flus, colds and viruses and other diseases? Of course. Wash your hands everyday numerous times with soap and water, take steps necessary to remain healthy. Please also be aware of the larger picture and keep things in perspective.
For decisions made in fear cause us to be blind to other issues that need to be addressed. Rational thinking is the result of an emotionally healthy mind, so on this journey of self-discovery you will make better choices for yourself and overcome the negative programming of the past. Be aware of how powerful your reactions can be. Consider giving back or volunteering, for this is a great time to do that and rediscover the best of who you really are.
You'll find that those horrible deaths that happen every year because of both unhealthy, long-term personal choices and immediate threats to your wellbeing will diminish as you become healthier mentally and emotionally. You can change your life for the better.
We all know that life is a series of challenges and that being at your best allows you to deal with the situations in the most intelligent, rational way. And when these viral outbreaks occur you will deal with them without self-imposed fears and mistakes, helping you to also become a better role model and mentor for others.
Isn't it time to make better personal choices for ourselves and create a society based upon heart-centered wisdom that truly supports a common good for us all? We can transform ourselves and the world one step at a time as we resolve and release our own negative subconscious programming, beliefs and behaviors.
You will find that those old reasons why your fears are fanned by present-day circumstances will begin to fade in importance and no longer cause so much disruption, panic and fear. It’s time to use rational, scientific thought free of irrational fear in conjunction with an emotionally healthy perspective. This is what we are opening up to, our authentic live expressed through our authentic selves. In this way, you discover what it means to live your life in the now.