As scientists, epidemiologists, policy makers and health experts explore and test ways to help people across the world to be safe from the novel coronavirus, what can an individual do?
Much has been written about handwash, wearing masks, and maintaining physical distance.
In this article, I explore how these recommendations are also a call to be mindfully present.
Handwashing
Some of you may have seen the ridiculously cute Dia Mirza’s demonstration of handwashing routine, complete with her daughter observing her curiously as she goes about the process.
Here: I welcome you to be curious like that little girl. How often do we do things in a rush, not paying attention to taken-for-granted processes?
I welcome you to pause, bring your attention to your hands, the crooks between your fingers, the thumb that gets forgotten, the wrist that holds. Breathe in, deep, and exhale.
What else have you taken for granted? A relationship, the way you make your favourite curry, doing squats, or maybe something else?
Wearing a Mask
The face is the living room of our self—the room we first invite our guests to enter. We often pay extraordinary attention to how our face looks. We moisturize it, tone it, scrub it, remove dead cells, and bleach or add tan. We put face packs to tighten the skin and help it be more radiant.
And in the energies given to this process, an obsession about the Other and how they may perceive us.
The social media is also a Face we show to the world—we work on our presence in that world and fret about how others receive us.
And then comes the Pandemic and we are asked to wear masks.
What does it call us to do?
For me, it is a call to be responsible in how we show up for others. How are we communicating in this moment—what words do we choose, how we perceive them, how we act offline and online. And how our actions can impact others.
What has the act of wearing masks called you to do?
Physical Distancing
Remember how you met friends at a coffee shop or perhaps partied at a pub on the weekend? R perhaps joined a community festival with your neighbours and or a family event with relatives?
The dressing up, the conversations, the casual ways in which we place our hands on the other—maybe the shoulder, maybe a pat on the back, maybe a touch of the elbow or holding of hands. Or perhaps just an awareness of the other’s breath, the crease in their face as they laugh and how the sound travels through the air.
And now you are required to maintain distance and avoid gatherings.
It has helped me respect relationships and community even more. I realise the importance of connections in our life and am more open to improving quality of presence in a relationship.
What has physical distancing made you aware of?
NLP Approach to Pandemic
The NLP approach to life helps one to choose how and to what one pays attention, how we interpret it in our minds and how we can choose to respond to it.
What are you paying attention to in this Pandemic? In what way? How are you choosing to interpret it? How are you choosing to respond to it?
Isn’t that a cool way to approach any Crisis in life?