Coronavirus and Fear
I live in Washington state where the first Corona virus case was detected. There is lot of fear, uncertainty and confusion in minds of folks around me due to lack of testing which would have determined who is currently infected with corona virus. There are website links and latest news being shared on my What's App groups. This situation has also led every one to suspect every other person around them - may it be in stores or parks or roads. When I go for walks I see people who will step 6 feet aside or move to other side of the road. No one stops to talk like earlier and we just wave hands and smile from a distance. Which is perfectly fine and normal in this situation given that the guidelines state a safe distance is 10 feet from an infected person's cough droplets.
Yesterday I wondered in my bed what is going on in other people's mind. Are they fearful and afraid, or are they confused and uncertain? How many are stable, happy and unaffected by the fear and panic around them? It is said that sometimes it is normal to fear the unknown which one cannot see. Coronavirus is something which we cannot see.
It reminded me of a time on a day of 2018 February. I had picked up my twins from daycare and parked my car in the driveway. It was around 5 PM and the sky was dark and gloomy. I unstrapped one daughter and she ran across the driveway towards the stairs which led to our home. There are five stairs leading to our home and she stood on the first stair waiting for me. I then unstrapped another daughter and was walking with towards the home when five huge animals rushed from one side of the fence towards the area between me and the daughter near the stairs. They looked like five wild pigs rushing from one side our fence to the other side of the fence. When they were gone my kids looked shell shocked at me trying to figure out what had just bolted in front of us. I took my kids in and they were were dazed and confused. I explained that those animals were raccoons and they come out of their burrows at nights.
It took a while for my two year olds to process this knowledge and they were fearful and wary when we reached home every evening from their daycare. Many days later I was reading the Indian mythology Ramayana where Tataka a demoness rules a dark and dense forest. My daughters asked me whether she was friends with the raccoons and I said may be. They could no longer see the raccoons and the demoness(of course she doesn't exist!) but the fear remained. The next day one of my daughter wanted to go upstairs to pick up something but was hesitating to go alone. I asked her why she was hesitating to go to her room and she said she may encounter the raccoons there. My other daughter came to her rescue and said something wonderful. She said "Don't worry. Raccoons and Tataka are our friends and they will protect us. Let's go up to the room". And she lead her sister up to her room. They no longer feared the unknown and unseen saying they were friends and would protect them. This lead them to not freeze up with fear but go about their daily life without the stress and worry of something they couldn't visually see.
We cannot see the virus but feel its effects. Everyone I know has been doing their best to take best precautions suggested by CDC and the government and have been safe distancing themself from the society. So why fear something after we have out in our best efforts? Well, I thought, just like my kids, will visualizing "Coronavirus is our friend and it will protect me and my family" get rid of the chemicals temporarily released due to stress and worry in the body and help us release positive chemicals which may help us improve the current immunity of our body against the virus? The virus could break our bodies but need not break our minds.
Yesterday I wondered in my bed what is going on in other people's mind. Are they fearful and afraid, or are they confused and uncertain? How many are stable, happy and unaffected by the fear and panic around them? It is said that sometimes it is normal to fear the unknown which one cannot see. Coronavirus is something which we cannot see.
It reminded me of a time on a day of 2018 February. I had picked up my twins from daycare and parked my car in the driveway. It was around 5 PM and the sky was dark and gloomy. I unstrapped one daughter and she ran across the driveway towards the stairs which led to our home. There are five stairs leading to our home and she stood on the first stair waiting for me. I then unstrapped another daughter and was walking with towards the home when five huge animals rushed from one side of the fence towards the area between me and the daughter near the stairs. They looked like five wild pigs rushing from one side our fence to the other side of the fence. When they were gone my kids looked shell shocked at me trying to figure out what had just bolted in front of us. I took my kids in and they were were dazed and confused. I explained that those animals were raccoons and they come out of their burrows at nights.
It took a while for my two year olds to process this knowledge and they were fearful and wary when we reached home every evening from their daycare. Many days later I was reading the Indian mythology Ramayana where Tataka a demoness rules a dark and dense forest. My daughters asked me whether she was friends with the raccoons and I said may be. They could no longer see the raccoons and the demoness(of course she doesn't exist!) but the fear remained. The next day one of my daughter wanted to go upstairs to pick up something but was hesitating to go alone. I asked her why she was hesitating to go to her room and she said she may encounter the raccoons there. My other daughter came to her rescue and said something wonderful. She said "Don't worry. Raccoons and Tataka are our friends and they will protect us. Let's go up to the room". And she lead her sister up to her room. They no longer feared the unknown and unseen saying they were friends and would protect them. This lead them to not freeze up with fear but go about their daily life without the stress and worry of something they couldn't visually see.
We cannot see the virus but feel its effects. Everyone I know has been doing their best to take best precautions suggested by CDC and the government and have been safe distancing themself from the society. So why fear something after we have out in our best efforts? Well, I thought, just like my kids, will visualizing "Coronavirus is our friend and it will protect me and my family" get rid of the chemicals temporarily released due to stress and worry in the body and help us release positive chemicals which may help us improve the current immunity of our body against the virus? The virus could break our bodies but need not break our minds.
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