HOPE, HEALING, and STRENGTH WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
CORONAVIRUS:
A Spiritual Emergency
by Dr. Laurie Nadel
I write to you with a heavy yet hopeful heart. For the past thirty years, I have been working to help individuals, first responders and groups recover from catastrophic events including 9/11, the Parkland high school massacre, and Hurricane Sandy. Although my own home of 20 years was destroyed in that storm, I was privileged to be able to draw upon my experiences with teenagers whose fathers were killed in the World Trade Center to be able to offer long-term support to people in my community who were traumatized by losing everything they had built.
Sharing our tears, hopes, and moments of triumph brought us closer together. But now we are facing a new challenge: staying connected when we are physically in isolation. Thankfully our phones and internet connections offer us the technical ability to share our experiences but it is important to understand that isolation can be a stress amplifier.
In our extraverted society, we are not encouraged to spend time alone. It might not be your first choice but finding balance and calm while being bombarded with news about the escalating pandemic and rising death toll calls us to hit the pause button on life and find out way within to a place of inner safety.
The easiest way to get there is to close your eyes, focus inward on any tension points in your body and ask silently, “What color would help you to feel calm?” Whatever color comes into your mind, inhale and let it find its way to any area of your body that would like to feel relaxed. You can exhale and release any tension by breathing out a different color. This is my #1 emotional first aid tool…it has helped thousands of people dealing with shock and panic after facing death and destruction. Try it for a few seconds and when you feel calmer, let your mind float you back to a place and time when you felt relaxed and filled with well-being.
Step into that experience as if it was happening again and stay there for a little while. Feel free to share this color breathing activity with your kids, family members, coworkers and friends. Teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas tell me it really works to take the edge off fear so that it doesn’t escalate into panic. Now, more than ever, make sure you get enough rest, stay hydrated, and try to follow a regular schedule. Try to eat at regular meal times. It may surprise you but something simple, like choosing what you are going to eat can help you regain a sense of control even though we cannot control the course of events.
The long and winding road to that place where we come to terms with our losses and begin to build our new sense of self requires that we give ourselves all the time we need to process the unthinkable, with compassion for ourselves and others. There is no predictable timetable or linear path for healing. I have never met anyone who decided that three weeks from today at 2:37 p.m. she would be “over it” and made it happen exactly like that. It’s impossible to predict how the heart heals or how long it is going to take.
Hardship is part of life’s journey. Even this global pandemic can serve as our spiritual wake-up call to learn how different spiritual traditions heal from life-shattering events. The Five Gifts — humility, patience, empathy, forgiveness, and growth — offer us the keys to wholeness.
Humility helps us accept what we cannot change.
Patience takes the edge off when the hurt lasts longer than we want.
Empathy keeps us connected for the long haul.
Forgiveness means forgiving ourselves, our leaders, and God.
Growth lets us look back with thanks for what we learned when the journey of life was anything but comfortable and easy.
Let’s journey together.
Need help? www.laurienadel.com