The global pandemic has meant we have effectively been under house arrest for several weeks now. How are you doing? This unprecedented situation is putting many of us to the test. Forced to drop our busy-ness and climb off the hamster wheel, we come face-to-face with ourselves. Instead of rushing to the next diversion, we have a wonderful opportunity to stop, be still and get to know ourselves better. When we take our attention away from its obsession with the outside world and just get curious about our own inner life, we find parts of ourselves, hidden parts that only INsights can reveal.
INsights are key to self-understanding because they come from inside you, are shown irrefutably to you, and connect you to an inner strength that is impossible to get from the outside world. No wisdom or authority can create your inner state; only you can create love or fear in your heart. All outside ‘authority’ can do is rob you of your peace and drive you into your reptilian brain, if you let it. The hysterical reporting in the mass media with its relentless message that we’re all going to die is a fast track to switching off our logic and reason. This media talks about following THE science as if it’s the voice for God, when much of it is pseudo-science based on guesswork. Wildly differing and fluctuating projections of infection and mortality rates rest on highly dodgy premises (for example, without knowing the number of people in the population who have immunity to the virus, it’s impossible to arrive at accurate projections).
Nevertheless, absorbing the “one story fits all” story peddled by the vapid media triggers an automatic, primeval stress response. Otherwise known as our fight/fright/freeze reaction, it cuts us of from the reasoning centre of our neo-cortex, makes us clam up like an oyster and floods our bodies with stress chemicals. During a crisis like this, fear shows up in two main ways: anger and sadness. Some people are furious that their lives have been put on hold and others are depressed about it. Either way, these attitudes wreak havoc with our immune system, shutting down its natural, built-in ability to fight disease.
If authorities really wanted to help us protect ourselves from corona virus, they would explain how! Washing hands and keeping social distance may be necessary, but so too is a clear understanding of what stress does to our body when it is engulfed by fear. As long as we are run by unconscious fear, we will forever be hostage to ill health. We pay a very high price for our ignorance.
Fear was designed for self-defence, when adrenalin was needed to act quickly in the face of danger. With the passing of the threat, the body is designed to naturally return to a state of harmony. But the pandemic messages that point to dangers everywhere, keeping us in a high state of anxiety. They make us wary and afraid of one another and encourage us to find someone to blame. Blaming and shaming stoke fear on a daily basis, fear that can’t be washed away or kept at bay. Yet authorities have nothing to say about how to deal with anger, sadness and all the other fear-based emotions that this crisis is bringing up.
The seminal role of stress in compromising the immune system has been well documented since the 1980’s but does not seem to be disseminated in the culture. This leaves us unwittingly colluding with negative emotions like fear, blame and unconscious guilt. These emotions flood every cell of our body with poisonous chemicals that suck the life out of our immune system.
Studies show that there are two escape routes that will redress the damage to your immune system and get it humming again. These are offered to you if you have the open-mindedness and maturity to stop listening to fear-mongering and start to experiment with non-conventional methods! Free yourself of the cultural narrative that holds us in its thrall, and test out alternative means of healing your fear. If you take them to heart and put your energy and attention into practising them, you give yourself the best chance of full blooming, buzzing health – in mind, body and spirit.
Immune System Functioning and Protection from Viruses
Fearful thoughts produce stressful feelings and emotions. Stress pumps its poisonous chemicals throughout our immune system, cancelling out our ability to fight off viruses. A healthy immune system would clean a virus right out of the system; that’s it’s job. This is why organ transplant patients have to take stress-inducing immunosuppressant drugs, to prevent the body’s natural immune system from rejecting the new organ. Proof positive that every time you say “yes” to fearful thoughts and feelings, you create the stress that prevents your immune system from protecting you.
Studies show a consistently high correlation between emotional states and immune system function. Prolonged, severe negative emotions have a devastating effect on the entire immune system. Ongoing conditions like depression and anxiety open you up to all kinds of illnesses, not just viruses. Studies also reveal what we can do about it, highlighting the 2 most important ways we can care for and restore our immune system to optimal functioning.
The first way is to practise the F word…Forgiveness. Practising forgiveness is a magic key that unlocks and releases chronic negative emotions. Deep, profound, heart-felt forgiveness is a super-highway to healing. It carries us beyond the yapping ego mind to a place of intuition, a dimension of your psyche that is beyond words and images. Forgiveness takes us “out of ourselves”, softening the rigidity of mind and emotions and making possible the release of blocked emotions. Given how long we’ve known that negative emotions compromise the immune system, it’s amazing that Forgiveness is not regularly offered up as a primary prescription.
Look within and see how influenced you are and always have been by the opinions and views of others, the media included. If you can’t see it, it’s because you’re so steeped in your cultural conditioning that you’re like the fish swimming around trying to find the water. Try to drop your innate tendency to be defensive about these programmed ideas and just look at what we’ve been taught is ‘normal’.
We live in a culture that normalises our tendency to hit out and blame ourselves or others for our problems. Negative emotions like hatred, anger and revenge always contain blame. Blame always breeds division; whether it’s within ourselves, between us and our relationships or between nations. Fear is at the root of all our debilitating emotions, but whether we blame ourselves or others for our problems, the cure is always the same: Forgiveness.
Forgiveness is like a balm that heals ourselves and others. It raises us above our thinking mind and into our heart, the centre of our being, the place of stillness and intuition. Don’t worry if you haven’t done this for a while. Do it now. Deep down, we all want to love and be loved. Forgiveness opens the way. The more we drop our grievances, the more we can truly forgive and let go. It is beyond rational understanding how forgiveness works and therefore impossible to explain it. The only way to know it is to know it for yourself. It’s the same with anything; unless you know it for yourself you don’t really know it, it’s just a concept in your head.
Know if for Your Self
The next time you find yourself judging, complaining, resenting, feeling victimised or feeling vulnerable: STOP. You are going to suspend judgment (i.e. stop listening to the outside stories, or indeed the ones in your head) and try a little experiment over the next days. You are going to be your own scientist.
When we go into our hearts with a genuine desire to forgive, miracles happen. For every person or event that’s ever hurt you or upset you in any way, close your eyes, you’re your heart and practise the Ho’oponopono prayer:
I’m sorry
Please forgive me
I love you
I thank you
The other way to release emotions is to identify a film that you find genuinely, side-splittingly funny. When you can laugh and let go for an hour or two, you transcend normal ego consciousness. Studies find that the immune system increases by 20-25% after this kind of release!
So, what are you waiting for? Start forgiving, start laughing and boost your immune system like nothing else can.