Coronavirus Pandemic. Just that two-word phrase strikes fear into most or all of us. I have never lived thru a pandemic before, and I’m assuming most of you haven’t either. The North Carolina Stay At Home order from our Governor has brought on a whole new normal. I am accustomed to being at home a lot, because I have been working from home for the past few years. It hasn’t been a big adjustment for me. For Ken and me and many of our friends and loved ones, though, we are having a lot of intense feelings which hitchhiked into our brains along with news of the coronavirus. The TV news is all pandemic all the time. This has done a lot to make us feel afraid of each other, friends and strangers alike. Many of us are afraid to leave our homes, especially if we are in the “high-risk” category, yet we also have cabin fever. Those of us who are extroverts and used to plenty of affection may feel ourselves losing energy and missing the in-person conversations and hugs we usually get from those close to us.
Most of my life I have heard people say that fear is the opposite of faith, but that has *not* been my experience. When I’m sitting in a place of fear, that’s when my faith means the most to me. That’s when my relationship with the Divine helps me build my core of inner peace. Talking and listening to God reminds me that, on my own, I have only limited power, but when I align myself with God’s will, His Divine power flows both into and out of me. I have learned that, when I am distressed, these are the times when I need to quiet myself and listen to my intuition. I believe our intuition is the way God speaks to us directly, but there are times that cuddling up with God does not quiet the noise in my head. I have a long history of having obsessive thinking, and good self-care helps me to be able to change my focus and take the fuel away from the obsessive thoughts. About 10 years ago, I worked at a mental health resource center. I took lots of mental health education courses, which gave me a whole lot of practical ways in which I could help others and help myself. I took a class where the instructor showed us how to make a box for ourselves which we could use to self-soothe. I made one for my office and another one for my home. I no longer work for that company, but left there with lots of new-found knowledge and certification as a Peer Support Specialist in the State of North Carolina. I decided at that time that I wanted to do mental health education instead of peer support. I designed a seminar for churches and faith-based groups and spent the next 3 years giving concerts with Ken and facilitating my seminar. I was struggling with increasing chronic pain in my hips and thighs, which eventually made travel impossible, so I switched from giving seminars to hosting and co-producing a podcast, “In Search of Peace & Healing.” One of my favorite strategies for good self-care is what I call a Care Package. If this concept appeals to you, feel free to make your own. Here are some ideas to get you started. Find a box, basket or container in which you can store your Care Package. It can be small, medium, large or enormous. Build your care package by putting things into your container that will help you feel better should you be upset, frightened, triggered or feeling squirrelly. It’s your box and you can put whatever you want to put in it. I went to Michaels when they had a sale of their decorative boxes. I bought a medium-sized one and a large one. Here are some of the things I have in my Care Package.
Celia Boone Podcast: ISO Peace & Healing Descant Music & Media Group (DMMG) BONUS: Parable of the Butterfly A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were God’s way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly! Author unknown
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