Choosing Light Over Darkness: Finding Hope During COVID-19

April 8, 2020 Linda Longo-Lockspeiser

When we go through serious challenges in life, we often become hyper-attentive to everything around us. We notice things that we were blind to before. The sunsets seem more beautiful, a child’s kiss more precious, the meal we prepare together more enjoyable. The last goodbye before our loved one dies, the devastating loneliness after our spouse moves out for good, letting go of our first college-bound child. We feel pain deeply; we feel joy deeply. Our hearts break open in a way that allows us to be fully present and alive to the experience. These are blessings in disguise.

Fear Robs Us of Seeing With Our Heart

Right now, we are in the midst of one of the most challenging times in our collective lived experience as a result of the COVID-19 virus. To be sure, it is terrifying on a very primal level because of the randomness and invisibility of the disease. At this time of terror and this place of unknowing, however, people are suffering from the impact of fear, helplessness, and hopelessness, if not from the actual effects of the virus itself.

via Forbes

We see this in the panic in stores when people fight over daily necessities in the belief that there will not be enough—another myth in our time, the Myth of Scarcity. We see it in the blaming and scapegoating of others. We see it in political conspiracy theories. We see it in the level of free-floating anxiety that seems to have gripped our soul, causing an inability to focus for any length of time without resorting to checking in on our electronic devices, emotional eating or drinking, or binge-watching Netflix.

I can’t count the number of people, including myself, who have said they can’t concentrate on anything, much less read a book on how to manage stress at times of crisis. But, if we are to survive and thrive after this pandemic recedes, it will be because we remember the gifts in the darkness. As Mary Oliver so eloquently wrote in her poem,

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

Messages of Hope: Gifts in the Box

Neale Donald Walsch, author of “Conversations with God,” echoes this sentiment on his message of hope—there are gifts we can take from this pandemic if we stay open and present to the deeper messages of these events. These are some of my thoughts on his reflection:

We Are All Part of One Human Race

The entire world is united in a common experience at the same time during this COVID-19 pandemic. We are all vulnerable. We can no longer act as if we can separate our fate from the fate of other human beings on the planet. We need to remember that we will survive and thrive, but only if we work together.

via CDC

Competition is a value from another time. Cooperation and caring are the values that will be the deciding forces. We should see the countries that have offered us help as role models.

We, in the United States, are used to being on the giving end of the equation. We need to drop our false pride, acknowledge our powerlessness, and ask for help—the first step in balancing the scales of give-and-take so important in any relationship. When we recognize our interdependence, we may begin to create more equitable relationships around the world, thus assuring the possibility of peace.

There is Enough

Perhaps this is the time in history to take seriously Nelson Mandela’s warning—that there can be no peace without justice. Economic and opportunity inequity, the disparity in resources between the 1% and the rest of the world, the demonizing of the have-nots, and the bowing to the god of consumerism all contribute to a narrative that measures success by how much power and money one has. This drives us to overwork, to compete with no limits, to believe that we have to get our share of the pie before the next person does, and then to obsess about how our investments are doing… as if these will create a peaceful heart and a well-lived life.

Maybe this pandemic will help us remember what is really important in life, like gratitude, integrity, honor, love, loyalty, and sharing our resources. The Principles of Reiki, an ancient healing art, sum up many of these for me:

Just For Today
Just for today, I will not worry
Just for today, I will not anger
I will honor all living beings
I will work with integrity
I will give thanks for my many blessings

Isolation Does Not Mean Disconnection

There are so many ways we can stay connected today. In many ways, I feel closer to those I love; with fewer distractions, I think of them more often, pray for their well being, call, text, and FaceTime. We can check in with neighbors who are homebound. We can open our windows to sing or bang pots and pans to let everyone know how much we appreciate our first responders. We can send Facebook messages and memes to create laughter and connection. We can share our wealth and our hope. We can even grieve together from a distance for those who have succumbed to the virus.

via The Sun

What a difference it makes when we connect online. By watching concerts and webinars, streamed dance classes, or televised operas from the Metropolitan Opera, we can feel the love that brought these events into our homes. Creativity has blossomed. People all over are figuring out ways to say, “I love you,” “I miss you,” “I care about you." The other night, our family spent an hour and a half talking together on Zoom from seven different locations. We laughed, we teased, we caught up with the worries and cares of our day. There was plenty of loving and caring expressed to last the week.

Both/And

It may seem difficult to focus on anything but the dire predictions about coronavirus and worry about how it will change our lives going forward. An Irish Catholic Cappuchin friar/priest, Fr. Richard Hendrick, captured the “both/and” quality of this terrible/inspiring time in a poem called “Lockdown.” It was circulated by the BBC on March 13, 2020. Here is a short piece of the poem that speaks of the choice each of us is called to make during this pandemic and beyond.

“Yes there is fear, but there does not need to be hate.
Yes there is isolation, but there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is sickness, but there does not have to be disease of the soul.”

See this content in the original post

Our Choice

This pandemic has brought us a box full of darkness. We have a choice about what to do with it. We can shut down, blame, deny, judge or curse the darkness. Or, we can look inside, face our fears, look more deeply at their birth, whether from today’s pandemic or from some other unhealed part of our earlier experience.

As Richard Schwartz, founder of a model of healing our inner parts called “Internal Family Systems” teaches, we can remind our fearful parts to relax. We can remind our annoyed parts that are judging our fearful parts that we are grateful for how they are trying to protect us from harm; that we will take care, that we will be prudent, and that we trust that we will be okay, no matter what happens.

We can face the box of darkness with caring, courage, and competence. We can look for the gift inside the box of darkness. For how we deal with this event in our life will affect not only our present but the future of our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren through the centuries. We are their ancestors. What will be our legacy? What will be our gift to them? Will we teach them to curse the darkness, or to sing, see the beauty in life and each other, and love without bounds?