Change the way you see the lockdown. It can be a gift and not a curse, but that depends upon You.
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OK.
So we are living in a world that has shut down.
We face uncertainty in that we don’t know how long it will be to find a way to tackle the coronavirus.
It could be anywhere between 2 months-2 years.
And the prospect of spending two full years like this would be enough to cause anyone to completely break down and have extreme difficulty functioning.
But I have news for you.
The lockdown period can be the greatest opportunity you have ever had, to ‘remake yourself’.
What do I mean by that?
Look at yourself. See what qualities you possess that are positive. Capitalize on them. See the negative qualities. And use this gift of free time to get rid of them.
Think positive thoughts, affirm everyday, I am being remade into a brand new version of myself, through the lockdown.
I Just Saw Five People I Know Die. How Can I Be Positive About That?
I feel you.
That’s heartbreak and loss, pain and despair, an occasion to grieve.
I don’t minimize any of the suffering you’ve been through.
It’s been tough. On everyone.
But that means that we should try extra hard to be positive and pray for the peace of God to fill our hearts and our families.
A grief-stricken heart loses all energy.
A life of grief is hard to experience. Harder to come out of, when, say, your parents and similarly close relations die.
But it is in the time of our greatest grief that we need to draw on our inner strength the most, because nothing else will get you through this period.
Grief can be a burden for years. Somehow, somewhere, we need to move on. We need to say, this was impossible to bear, but with God’s help, we’re going to get through it.
Don’t deny your grief. Feel your way through it. But most critically, come out of it as time passes by.
Why You Should Focus on the Now and Imagine a New You
Imagine a dream version of yourself.
Your current self with the negative qualities completely gone.
We should understand that the coronavirus has given us an invaluable gift — an abundance of free time.
We can spend that time in self-pity. And yes, we must be gentle and kind with ourselves always.
We can also spend the time to change ourselves into whatever we’ve dreamed of being, but never took action because there was no time in our busy schedules.
Your dream self might consist of:
- Losing 30 pounds of accumulated fat.
- Building your relationship with your kids.
- Doing courses that benefit your profession that you never had time for.
- Creating new artwork or media for the public
- Discovering your musical self
- Learning to play the violin / piano / keyboard / guitar — whatever instrument is available.
- Learning to sing.
- Volunteering in community projects you have always admired like feeding the homeless.
- Rebuilding broken relationships.
- Restoring a broken marriage.
- Learning a new language. (French or Python) :-)
- Creating good memories of family time spent with your children that they will cherish for the rest of their lives.
- Reading Holy Scripture.
You get the idea.
Make Your Personal Dream a Reality
Deal with grief with deliberate action.
Perhaps you could pray together as a family for their souls.
Don’t repress it or smother it — express it in a healthy manner.
That is, accept the new reality, as painful as it is, and draw on your circle of friends and family for support.
And do not forget that every moment of your life is a potential treasure. You can make it a masterpiece or not benefit at all.
The choice is yours.
Uniquely yours.
I don’t mean to say, pick yourselves up after a loved one dies and start a strength training program to lose 50 pounds.
I mean; accept the new reality. It will be tough. But deal with it.
Journal, pray, read the Bible, spend time with your loved ones, and comfort others around you experiencing grief.
Sometimes life sucks. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Just bite the bullet and hang on.
66,000 People Are Dead just in the USA And You Want Us To Try to Enjoy Ourselves?
Look, I’m not denying any reality.
I’m just saying we can’t control what happens to us, but we can control and create our own response to the situation.
That, in a nutshell, is the essence of response-ability. We are free to choose our response.
Victor Frankl, the revered survivor of German concentration camps from World War II, has that response-ability as the central theme of his seminal book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
And that is my message to everyone struggling with lockdown.
Deal with your problems.
Help others who have lost near and dear ones — you always gain in emotional maturity from such empathetic behaviour.
Then come home, sit by yourself, take a deep breath and on a blank sheet of paper, write out a description of the New Dream You / Family / Career / Relationship / Marriage / Child-Raising / Hobby / Passion / Lifetime Ambition.
And take steps towards achieving that reality.
Concrete steps.
The first few are the hardest to take, but get through the initial starting phase and you’ll find it helps in you dealing with the loss of your loved ones.
Remember: Very few things are inherently good or inherently bad. You are the person, who decides whether something that happens is a blessing or a curse. You can choose.
Finally, Turn to God Seeking Comfort
Millions of people around the world are finding that when disaster strikes, a solid relationship with God will strengthen you enough to overcome your own pain and also help others in similar pain.
We all go back to the One who sent us into the world.
He is real, I call Him Jesus Christ, but whatever your name for God may be, realize that building a strong spirituality and the deep awareness that He is in charge of your life can do wonders for your problems.
And for the problems of your loved ones.
Death Is an Illusion
OK bro, now I know you’re freakin’ insane!?
Several hundreds of thousands of people have died, and now you say death does not exist? That it’s an illusion?
Death is an entrance into the afterlife.
You may not believe in the afterlife.
I just want to say that a short life with eternity ahead is easier to think of than a long life that comes to an end.
And physics proves it.
The Law of Conservation of Energy — Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can merely be converted from one form to an other.
Matter and energy are equivalent, by Einstein’s famous equation, E = m c^2 (squared).
If matter and energy are two forms of the same physical entity, matter cannot be created or destroyed either.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
That single realization will change your outlook on life during the coronavirus.
And bring you true and lasting peace.
You will meet your loved ones again.
Your life on Earth was planned for you.
God exists.
He has plans for you.
You will live forever.
What a wonderful thought!
What a rapturous, joyful, promising thought!
It may have taken the Coronavirus for you to understand — the story of humanity has a happy ending.
We can console ourselves with such thoughts.
Spirituality is now more a necessity than an option.
The Gospel of John is a good place to start reading the Bible. Especially chapters 14-17.
And make the most of our lockdown — even try to enjoy it.
Because the world passes away, but He who does the will of God lives forever.
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