the manual

a dummy's guide to surviving a global pandemic

Survival tip #1: Self-care is of the utmost importance

You know the drill, rule for losing oxygen while flying: If there is a loss of oxygen, put your mask on first. You can’t help others if you don’t help yourself. Especially now, you should engage in healthy practices and do your best to develop and sustain routines that bring you comfort and provide a base of stability.

Survival tip #2: Self-compassion.

Be very gentle with yourself. Anxiety and fear are primal and can fly and bounce around our minds and bodies to make us miserable. Emotions come and go, return and disappear again and – you want to trust that they will dissipate and that you DO NOT have to act on negative emotions.

Survival tip #3: Keep informed!

Seek out the facts, even the frightening ones. Anxiety and fear flourish in a vacuum. We fantasize and make up junk constantly, so feed your mind with the most relevant facts. Stay up to date on new developments.

Survival tip #4: CONNECT, CONNECT, CONNECT.

Albert Einstein wrote, “Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.” Explore the ‘Illusion of Separability.” The principle is simple. Despite what you think or believe, we are all connected. If ever you had a doubt or considered it, the Coronavirus has driven this fact home. What you do and say affects me. What I do and say affects you. On the unconscious level, we all need to connect. You don’t have to isolate yourself mentally or spiritually. Technology has given us the miracle to stay connected. Check in on friends, neighbours, family and young people by calling, emailing, texting, using Skype, Zoom or Facebook live. A simple email can make a world of difference to both the recipient and the sender.

Survival tip #5: Have the courage to ask for help.

Be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help and brave enough to ask for it. You and I do not have all the answers and we often operate by what I term ‘the arrogance of assumption.'Seek out other clear-thinking people to give their opinion and share their information.

Survival tip #6: Refuse to let fear and anxiety become another pandemic.

As a conscious human being, your challenge is to do everything you can to manage your anxiety and do our very best not to pass it on to others. “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.” - Herman Melville