This article is an opinion piece.  It does not replace medical advice, but it does encourage curiousity.

I know that title feels a little intense, but now that I grabbed your attention let me explain the evolutionary beauty of what a virus called Covid can do for a stunned nation, correction, world.  I have been preparing for something like a superbug virus to hit humanity ever since I was drawn into the world of nature, herbs, homeostasis (or balance), nutrition, life quality, ancestral knowledge, miracles, magic, epigenetics, healing, energy and science.  Yes, all of those wrapped up in one beautiful bundle of what we know as human existence.  I do not approach health from politics.  I approach it from my steadfast belief that we are all a part of this vast ecosystem and in that is where the ability to thrive, instead of survive, lies.  I have a deep love for an entire universe that was meant to thrive together.  Maybe this will be the time that humans finally fulfill their part to that equation.  Maybe balance will become bigger than greed.

Sink or Swim

I have never believed it should be so hard to live.  As an energetically sensitive soul I feel the world around me.  I feel the suffering,  I feel the pain.  I feel the hopelessness.  I also feel the excitement, the bliss, the utter beauty, the expansion and the love.  The world continues to turn with all of it.  As an adopted human, my fascination with roots and lineage has perhaps been heightened.  I have felt wisdom coursing through my blood, but had no reference for it.  It drove me to healthcare and world love.  I wanted to ease the suffering.  I wanted to elevate the quality of life.  I wanted to honor this wisdom of my ancestors that told me life held an enlightenment beyond our cultural constraints.  Fear has always repulsed me.  The darkness around it has repelled me like a brick wall.  I was told to tone down, not laugh so loud, be less, fit in.  Lucky for me, I couldn’t do it and wouldn’t do it.  This led me to take a good hard look at the culture around me that was working so hard to shape who I was to be, but adamantly refused.  What I saw from a very young age was a linear fear-based system that thrived in status and control.  I also saw the disempowerment of an entire species.  I saw the evolution of people put into a system of rules and regulations that became a sink or swim paradigm.  Most were either treading water nonstop to stay afloat and many sank, while a small percentage got a yacht.  What kept people in the water?  Fear.  Corporations.  2-Party Politics.  Big pharma.  Greed.  Debt.  Sickness.  Isolation.  We have created a cycle of life that is spinning so fast it is virtually impossible to get off.  You have to go harder and faster to keep up with everyone else.  If you fall off, no one can help you because they have to go harder and faster to keep up with the rest.  You are on your own.  You are lost at sea.  

Humans are unbelievably powerful. Think about how humans started out.  We lived from a place of intuition, heart-centered, community support. We learned through our highly regarded elders and stories that activated our imagination.  It took the whole village to make the world turn.  What we learned from living in community were invaluable life skills not taught in a classroom.  We became creative and resourceful when weather or circumstances shifted.  We relied on the land, the plants, the earth to heal.  The human body was revered and intentionally cared for.  We have squandered the large majority of that power and intuitive guidance by following a system that preys on our fears, bases our healthcare in a mega industry filled with greed and corruption and puts us into a rigid school system reliant on a left-brained linear model.  We learn to use the smallest part of a gigantic system of potential, which is our brain.  Our life forces encompasses every aspect of our being.  This evolution has put us in a place of severe imbalance and vulnerability.  We have all been too busy and tired staying afloat to even question or disrupt the system.

The Great Surrender

What do I see happening with the covid evolution?  I see a great surrender.  A surrender we could never afford in a life that would be swallowed in a heartbeat.  In that surrender comes trust.  The trust I speak of is in humans.  Humans that might finally be ready to band together for a universal cause.  Humans that see the destruction and damage of what was “normal” life as we knew it.  Humans that may be brought to their knees in the stark contrast between the gifting/kindness/love of strangers during this time to the lack of government support for those same strangers.  Humans that see the true heros in their communities on the frontlines, fulfilling our hospital and basic needs.  Humans that are snapped out of the state of stress that drove their lives and into a raw, real and vulnerable living that awakens their soul, in the dark times and light.  Humans that have the time to take an inward dive and find their capacity to connect and care.

The Gifts of Covid

We have the opportunity to be intentional. This is how humans were made to thrive, with intention.  Intention means care and care deepens our relationships.  We have learned a life of avoidance so that we do not drown.  Most of the time one more thing could be the weight that pulls us under.  So we avoid hard conversations, we leave relationships, we react out of fear, we give up dreams to pay the bills, we lose ourselves to become a parent, partner, professional, we stay in relationships that were over long ago, we work jobs to have healthcare, we make decisions out of obligation and more.  What if everything in your life became intentional?  Close your eyes.  What does that feel like?  Every interaction, every action, every minute.  This is an excellent time to take stock in how much of your life has been created out of intention.

I am thrilled to say that work and home life have collided, something we have spent years isolating from each other.  During that process, our lives have gotten busier with more deadlines, appointments, commutes and stress.  We have increased our environmental impact by creating an explosion of commuters.  Environmental pollutants contribute to a decrease in cellular health, which increases disease.  Stress is one of the biggest contributors to underlying health conditions.  We have been distanced from our families at best because of time constraints, at worst because of emotional scarcity. This may add to children feeling more isolated and mentally unwell than ever before, contributing to some of the largest numbers of suicide and mass shootings the world has ever seen. The rigid lines we’ve formed to compartmentalize our lives are suddenly dissipating.  Again, looking back to the beginnings humans worked and lived at home, on their land.  I believe this could be the catalyst to a wonderful disintegration of the separation of work and family.  We may have an epiphany that it’s possible when a virus forces our hand so why wouldn’t it be possible without.   

People are gardening!  Maybe it started out of a survival instinct, but maybe it will continue for the love of gardening and growing one’s own food, which means kicking those billion dollar corporations out of your mouth with their pesticides, chemicals, gmo’s, etc.  This is part of your health revolution.  This might just lead to bartering, crafting, creating and balancing.  When we begin to use those parts of our right brain we open up a well of abilities and intuitions, which makes us more innovative and resourceful and that can bring a greater wealth than riches might ever bestow.

Birth is moving back to home.  Y’all birth is moving back home!  In 1900 98% of births were home births and as of the last statistical analysis 98% of births were hospital births, where births are routinely dominated and intervened with based on (guess what) fear and liability-based practices.  Hospitals were already a dangerous environment filled with bacteria and virus, but this virus is changing the ability to birth with your partner and increasing risk to your newborn baby who needs to develop their immune system.  So what can we expect with increased home birth rates?  We can expect decreased medical interventions, increased immunity, better breastfeeding rates, less pelvic floor dysfunction and decreased postpartum depression rates with increased attachment and bonding. All of this information is available, but we have put so much trust into a for-profit system, it gets lost in the mix.  Guess what all this means…  a gentler society, a healthier society.  Continuity of care is the most successful model for healthy pregnancies, natural labors/births and healthy babies who become healthy adults with stronger immunity.  Do we still need the Western Medical System?  Yes, of course. These medical advancements are life-saving.  They should also be saved for the need for them.  When they are not, they subsequently cause a cascade of interventions and complications in birth and immunity.   

Underlying Exposure

What we have here is a nation of underlying sickness that has been exposed.  We are now looking at a medical system that is appropriate to save lives at times, but not to sustain lives and definitely not to prevent illness.  We have given over our medical autonomy because we are a culture reliant on quick medical fixes, pharmaceuticals and insurance systems that create more imbalance.  We are overworked, overstretched, disengaged, avoidant and disempowered in relation to our health.  A system that you put your trust into has failed you.  We are surrounded by a convenience culture to support the unsustainable lifestyles that have only ramped up, which in turn has become the root of underlying illness.  Fast food, processed foods, stress, sugar, leaky guts, mental health, sedentary lifestyles, obesity.  It has all caught up with us.  Viruses will always mutate.  It’s in their nature.  The harder we try to control them by creating a “fix”, the stronger they become.  Nature is a beautiful beast.  What if we created something inside of us that could exist with virus?  This is the blessing of the message we are receiving.  It can become your priority.  If we listen, we can be the re-igniter and director of the beautiful orchestra of balance, strong health and fulfillment that comes from our inside out, not the from the outside in.  

I’ve been hearing about all the coffee, alcohol and boredom. Let’s look at this. I don’t believe it should only be funny memes and pushed aside.  Have a laugh, but then explore it more.  Numbing ourselves misses the whole point of a pandemic, the lessons and the opportunity. This is the level of “numbing” that we have had to engage in our lives to survive.  We’ve had no time to explore the vast wonder of humanness.  Stop waiting to “restart” life!  Do you want to go back to the way it was?  Do you think there may be a different way to live?  A way that creates a balance and peace within that a pandemic cannot shake?  Start planning to “revamp” life!  

Bottom Line

We are learning about what is most important in this lifetime, health.  It takes something like a virus associated with a tragic death that shuts the world down.  But guess what.  We are napping!  We are sleeping!  Two of the quickest ways to health are sound sleep where your body can regenerate and repair, along with hydration.  We are doing it because we have time to do it!  It may feel unnatural to slow down, and if it does, take a good hard look at that.  When we vibrate from a place of health (emotional, mental, physical, spiritual) we re-ignite our human again.  This great surrender is a great opportunity to take the blinders off.  Rather than wait to see if you might end up in the hospital, start caring deeply for your state of health.  It’s a chance to feel how deeply you can go, how creative we can be.  Turn off fear media that wants to prey on your stress.  Find functional medical practitioners for information and support of homeostasis.  We are made to heal.  We are made to thrive.  It is up to us to create the environment that supports our abilities.  It’s go time! 

Be curious about the message that being unproductive during this time is fine. I understand the sentiment, believe me I do. What I have to say is about a war, a revolution. Yes, take your time with your emotional process and be grateful that we can take that time. But go deeper, dig deeper because the fate of humanity and the earth is breaking through in these moments.  We have an opportunity to not let things go back to normal.  Ask yourself, was normal really working for you?  For your family, your relationships, your health, your wellness, your emotional landscape, your capacity at enlightened fullfillment?  

We are being reminded of the great ability of humans to be adaptable, flexible and fluid when not run ragged.  I hope this wakes us all up.  I hope we begin to utilize the time we have to look at an utterly broken and dysfunctional system that is not supportive in a time of crisis or even in our previous “normal”.  Yes, this is uncomfortable.  For some, much more than others.  I don’t know of a time when great change happened without discomfort.  I hope this becomes the fuel for you to want to help everyone out of the water and to truly believe that we can. How about we decide as a collective how that system and the people we hire through our votes can work best for the greater good?

Stay curious with your wellness, with information, with conversations, with politics, with news media, with the plight of people, with your own intuition. We can do this.  I was born to believe in magic, the earth, humanity and you.  

Lori Reising is the Host of The Raw and Wild Hearts Podcast,
as well as a Retreat Leader, Speaker, Pelvic Floor Therapist, Childbirth Educator and Transpersonal Hypnotherapist.