corona virus

“First of all, fuck the future, stay in the NOW!” ~ Me

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author, speaker, and all-around wise-warrior-goddess, posted something on Instagram the other day that reminded me of an exercise I was taught back in the eighties when I was blindsided by debilitating anxiety attacks. Between gasping for air and literally feeling as if the sky was falling, I was advised to practice the 5-4-3-2-1 Coping Technique For Anxiety, and it always made me feel better even if I had to do it five times an hour.

Since basically everyone and their mother on planet earth is feeling a bit anxious these days, I thought I’d share it too.

It goes like this:

Stop whatever you’re doing and look around. Notice five things you can see.

Then take a breath and notice four things you can hear.

Breathe…and notice three things you can feel.

Breathe again and notice two things you can smell.
And then finally take a deep breath and notice one thing you can taste.

If you do this a few times a day you will literally bring yourself back to your senses!

What this does, is bring you back into your body, back into the present moment which, even though it feels uncertain and scary, is unquestionably better than living in that zombie apocalypse movie running on the endless loop inside your head.

And trust me, when you’re in your body you make better decisions.
You look out for yourself and those around you.
You’re somebody other people trust.
You call and check on friends.
And you finally, finally clean out that disgusting hall closet!

I know this sounds trite but I’m gonna say it anyway, because what are you going to do to me that sucks more than a pandemic?

Time is constantly moving forward. Nothing lasts forever. And this too shall pass.

I love you, stay healthy, stay calm and carry on,
xox

“Pain is real, and sometimes it can’t be avoided, but suffering is a choice.”

I don’t think I have to explain why I’m writing this. Unless someone, a thousand years from now digs this up and wonders. So I’ll just let a single word be the explanation: Pandemic.

Scary, huh? I mean, seriously, 2020—can we have a do-over?

Anyway, until they figure out how to do that, here’s an hour-long chant/meditation that I adore that you can fall asleep to or have playing softly in the background while you build that puzzle or cuddle your cat.

Because that’s what we’re all gonna do now. We’re going to hit pause, be smart, chill, and get to the end of this, this, shit show—together. 

You can fight the restrictions, steep in worry, and run around town like a headless chicken looking for that last bottle of hand-sanitizer, OR, you can take this time to reintroduce yourself to your family, read a book, binge on every episode of EVERYTHING you’ve missed, and check on your neighbors. I’ve been exchanging contact info with mine (from six feet away of course) just in case the shit hits the fan and we’re forced to isolate. Isolation can be lonely and scary and I always have extra butter in case anyone runs out. And AAA batteries and so many boxes that I’m embarrassed to say how many, of Kraft Mac n cheese, you know, real zombie apocalypse type stuff.

Humor. Humor will get us through this. I’ve already tried screaming and it doesn’t work.

Stay healthy & carry on,
xox

Hello Tribe,

If you take this post from a few years ago and substitute Corona virus for Jihad, the message is the same! My god, unless you’re living under a rock, the media has us going!

“The world is such a dangerous place!” they’d have us think. Uh, no. To put this in perspective, there have been around 3000 deaths worldwide, and with a population of over 7.5 BILLION—the odds of you dying from this is pretty darn low.

I mean, be smart, be diligent, wash your hands for 30 seconds and try not to touch your face but otherwise, don’t sacrifice yourself to the side effects of mass hysteria. Live that wild life of yours as best you can while this plays itself out and please, try not to catch the fear.

xox

Hello, fear. (Said with sneering disdain, like “Hello Newman” on Seinfeld).

Fear reared his ugly head again on Tuesday.
Like me, you probably woke up to the report of yet another terrorist attack on innocent civilians in Brussels. And again if you’re like me your first response was to gird your loins.

To hunker down, plant your feet, cross your arms, and label the world a dangerous place.

And along with me you probably felt a nauseous gut pit, which turned into sadness, then empathy and finally anger. Oh, yeah, and all of that with a fear chaser.

But you guys, it reminds me of those pharmaceutical ads on TV and their heinous side effects. You know the ones I mean. They’re laughable.

“For chronic chapped lips try *Chaplipocine. Taken regularly, it reduces the symptoms of chapped lips in only three days!
Side effects may include (and this is said at the speed of a professional auctioneer), flatulence, headaches, amnesia, seizures, constipation, swelling of the tongue and testicles, facial hair in women and babies, eventual loss of consciousness — and death.”

And it’s making billions because people are willing to suffer those consequences to get chapped lip relief!
Wtf?

But just as ridiculous and shoved down our throats even more aggressively, are the side effects of fear. They consist of paranoia, anxiety, uncontrollable security cravings, unwillingness to travel, suspicion, inability to turn off CNN, intolerance, giving away your privacy, dis-empowerment, not living your life — and death.

Seriously?

I for one, feel that’s unacceptable.

We all have a choice of how to respond.
I can eyeball the hipster next to me suspiciously while he sits there on his computer with his luxurious man-beard, and wonder if he’s crafting his jihadist manifesto (or if he coughed).  And I can cancel my trip to Europe that I saved years for.
Because I could die. We could ALL die.
Because it’s all too dangerous. The airports. Subways. Cafes. Sidewalks. Everything.

These are some of the side effects I’m not willing to suffer. How about you?

Listen, we have to be aware. We can’t and we shouldn’t walk with our faces buried in our phones or our head in the clouds. But there’s a difference between awareness and suspicion.

Don’t shake hands with fear. Please.(Or anybody right now for that matter.)

Girded loins never did anyone any good,

And chapped lips go away in three days regardless of the medicine you take.

So don’t endure the heinous side effects just for the illusion of being saved.

Anyhow, carry on,

xox

*you know this product doesn’t really exist, right?