I am a positive person, and I will sail through this positively. Oh! Really!?

Hello all, it's the month of May, and what does May remind us of? Mangoes! Isn't it? Mango is my favorite fruit and is more likely the same with most of you. But this time, why aren't mangoes giving us the same joy as they used to? Because our thoughts, messages and conversations mainly circulate about the Pandemic, right?

Since the last one year, we have all come across both authentic and false facts about the Pandemic. In this blog, I intend to express the truth that many of us shrug off from discussing.

I request you to please read through this till the very end with a light heart.

To begin with, I would like to narrate a short story – 'The Natural Order', picked from one of Paulo Coelho's blogs;

A rich man once asked a zen master for a text that will always remind him how happy he was with his family. To which the zen master wrote on a piece of paper,

"The father dies. The son dies. The grandson dies."

The rich man got furious reading these gloomy words, 

For which the Zen master replies –  If your son dies first, everyone will be devastated by the pain. If your grandson dies, it would be an unbearable experience., However, if your family disappears in the order which I placed on the paper, this is the natural course of life. Thus, although we all endure moments of pain, the generations will continue, and your legacy will be long-lasting. 

What has this story got to do with the current situation?

The word death is a taboo and is usually shunned in conversations, but I feel this is the right time to create more awareness about it and face reality.

The first wave of Covid mainly affected the elderly and was not this deadly. But, the second wave is hitting the youngsters hard. As humans, we measure a dead person's satisfaction with many different things, and the most common one is with the number of years they have lived, which is on an average 80 years. Also, we are accustomed to the pain of losing older people, but it is often more painful when younger people die. Yet, we seem to rationalize our emotions by saying, 'it is all the work of Karma' and 'they will go to heaven' or 'death is not in our hands', or 'the end can come at any time', etc. At the same time, not many of us know the complete truths behind these theories. But if a person suffering is granted a wish, don't you think he or she will wish for more time to live? I would! And I believe most of you would as well.

Let me ask you – to which of the 2 categories mentioned below do you belong??

Type one: glued to the news channels, has the facts and figures and is exceedingly scared. Type 2: believes in positive energy, avoids all discussions related to COVID, thereby missing out on essential guidelines.

These 2 types are in the extremes. 

If you think being positive is to avoid all negative talks, then you are the one to miss vital information provided by medical professionals. And with all this gloomy news unfolding around its humanely impossible to stay positive all the time and we are bound to get scared. Please allow your inner self to feel these emotions. This is not an unnecessary fear we need to overcome; it is the same necessary fear a deer in the jungle has for the tiger. A deer with fear always stays in the safety of the herd to protect itself from becoming the prey. In our case, we are the deer and corona virus is the tiger, and we just need to stay safe inside our homes.

Ages ago, it is the same fear that propelled us, brought so much advancement and built our modern civilization. If not for fear, we would have still been hunters in the middle of the food chain, wandering in the forest. 

I am a life Coach, and I usually insist my clients on affirmations and positive self talk to sail through tough days. But, the times have shifted slightly. Just by affirming 'I am healthy' or 'I am Strong', you will not be safe. We must understand that the virus is just following the Law of Nature. It does not discriminate between wealthy and poor; neither does it care how strong you are, nor if you are good, bad or evil. Its very nature is to penetrate, multiply and destroy as many body cells as possible. 

The following paragraph highlights about precautions and volunteer work: 

I am explicitly mentioning these topics as a part of this blog because if it could help save one person, the effort I took to write this blog would be worth it.

My husband works as a Volunteer for an Emergency group where they closely monitor a person's health status from the day they witness a change in their normalcy. Here are a few precautions or activities when done; most people can recover at home during the early stages without going to the hospital. Please take a minute to read through them; you might grab vital information that could save someone's life.

1.     Have a pulse oximeter and non-contact thermometer at home – a must for the current situation.

2.     No matter how busy your day is, do not compromise your sleep and a healthy diet. Also, make sure to schedule some time for a workout during the day; this helps keep your immune system strong.

3.    If you develop one of these symptoms - fever, headache, vomiting, body pains, running nose, sore throat, diarrhoea – anything that is not your normal functioning, it has to be taken seriously. Consult a doctor immediately. Please do not assume anything. Let the doctor decide. Do not self medicate at home. Keep measuring your SPO2 & body temperature every 2 hours and report to the doctor if it is below threshold levels mentioned by Health Professionals.

It is high time now, to trust the science and not rely only on our feelings and emotions. Most youngsters have high immunity and do not feel the lung infection until the SP02 goes down to 80 ( which requires oxygen support at that point). Please read this article to know more.

(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/happy-hypoxia-among-youngsters-new-threat/articleshow/82186705.cms)

If you consult a doctor in the early stages, you will receive medications that will minimize lung congestion. Meanwhile, you can start Pranayama or other Yoga asanas recommended to increase your oxygen levels.

I urge you to take up some volunteering so we can all support each other in every possible way. You can join a team guiding covid patients; you can cook food and send it to affected families, you can educate your near and dear ones on the preventive measures. Compassion is the need for the hour; call someone you know is depressed and needs help to cope, enquire on how everyone is doing after a vaccination. The beauty of modern technology lets you volunteer from the safety of our homes through software applications like ZOOM, WhatsApp, Twitter etc. With services like DUNZO, Zomato, Swiggy, you can even arrange food and medicines for affected families without stepping out of your homes.

Concluding the blog with a request and a message,

PLEASE CHECK THE AUTHENTICITY OF ALL MESSAGES BEFORE FORWARDING THEM. Affected families go through nightmares calling numbers in those forwarded messages only to find out that those numbers don't work or provide the services mentioned in the message. People are losing their precious time and lives because of our carelessness in forwarding all messages with helpline numbers that are not authentic.

In the end, I suggest you to have your feelings for real, and it's perfectly alright to fear and stay alert!. GOD WILL ONLY HELP US IF WE FIRST DO OUR PART SINCERELY. And together, we can sail through these tough times.

Remember, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.

And, we will certainly reach the end of it one day.

Sharing below the links for the references I have used in my blog, take a look if you are interested 

Link for story ' The Natural Order' that I have narrated in the beginning. 

(https://paulocoelhoblog.com/2016/02/22/the-natural-order/)

Link for an article by Indian Cricketer R Ashwin: "Be very scared, that's the only way to fight Covid".

(https://www.rediff.com/cricket/report/ashwin-please-be-scared-very-scared/20210517.htm)

  

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