This is a view of my mom’s hometown in Turin, Italy. I took this picture almost eight years ago. Turin is a city of life, hustle and bustle, with a population of about one million, yet this picture invokes a feeling of peace and calm. It’s taken from a perspective that is unseen unless you drive to the top.
I spent my youth in Piedmont, Italy—one of the hardest-hit regions of this pandemic. My heart aches for my family and friends, and I feel helpless over not being able to do anything about it.
Even though I know and understand the importance of stress management, the last few days have been hard. Our world is changing rapidly. I’m saddened by the toll the current crisis is taking on people in our community and around the world.
It’s easy to allow our fears to grip us and distract us, but it’s exactly in these sorts of circumstances that we need to be intentional about our stress management. Being intentional is hard, but necessary. It might mean taking a few minutes several times throughout the day to release the stress and reshape our perspectives.
Today, I choose hope and peace. Choosing an attitude isn’t like flipping a switch; it’s more like lighting a fire, one you tend to over time. The first step is to recognize and accept the uncomfortable emotions, let your body feel them, talk about them, and intentionally choose to work through them. Notice what’s happening. Say to yourself, “I feel scared.” Care for yourself like an adult cares for a child, “I see you are scared. It’s going to be okay.”
I want to feel how I felt on top of that hill in Italy. There are lots of great tools that can help us process our emotions and transform our perspectives. Doing so is a lot like standing on the top of that hill—we cultivate some perspective and find the space to choose our way forward.
This HeartMath tool is one of my favorites:
Special HeartMath Care Focus: Replacing Fear with Managed Concern
While breathing in a relaxed pace, pretend you are breathing through your heart or chest area and imagine calming your mind and emotions with each breath. (Calm emotions help to create a space that enables intuitive access for clearer discernment and choices when evaluating situations.
As you breathe, visualize mental and emotional calm and poise streaming into your mind and into all your cells. Hold a conscious intention in your heart to change feelings of anxiety or fear into feelings of managed concern. Practice will increase your capacity for maintaining care and compassion for humanity’s challenges without creating burnout in your own system. Remember, any progress is a lot of progress when reducing fear. Be patient.
Let’s close by radiating compassionate care and calm into the global energetic field to help reduce the fear and see people making smarter, less stressful choices from a perception and attitude of managed concern. This leaves people more in charge rather than a pawn of fear and mental scatter. The Coronavirus is a perfect situation for this effective practice for transforming the fears and anxiety which suppress much of our life force and power to create a better life.
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