
It’s day seven of lockdown in Shanghai without a clear end in sight. When the government stated that there would be a mandatory five-day lockdown, perhaps I should have followed the signs of people flooding every supermarket and food shop to gather the remains of any and all vegetables and realized that if ever there was a time to become a hoarder, this was it. They may have had an inkling of what was to come, but I’m not sure that anyone was fully prepared for the chaos that ensued.
After a few days of daily Covid tests, suits becoming normalized and the cases steadily rising (I believe the current count is 16,000), it became clear that this round of the virus wasn’t going to be coming and going quite that quickly. I had done a two-week home quarantine at the beginning of Covid upon my return to China in 2020, so I was prepared for time isolated at home with my fur babies. What I wasn’t prepared for was the mass panic that ensued. People who tested positive and close contacts taken to a centralized quarantine which consisted of nothing more than thousands of beds in what looked like a huge convention center. Being mandated an automatic 14 day home quarantine if a neighbor or even someone in your building has the virus. The fear as a pet owner of what would happen to your fur babies should you test positive, as central quarantine means no one is allowed into your apartment and someone from the government will come to spray various chemicals and de-sanatize everything. The angst of not finding groceries and basic needs such as toilet paper and water, as all online grocery services were suspended and the few apps running were overloaded by demand. The anxiety that came each time you did a covid test, even though you had done your best to stay isolated, knowing the ramifications that would happen should you test positive.
As a healer, I do believe that each experience brings a lesson which helps us on our journey. However, as someone who also is empathic and therefore very sensitive to energy, I will not sugarcoat things: I underwent a circumstantial depression. Waking up each morning feeling the tension of anxiety in my stomach and unease as I heard the yelling outside of people preparing for their nucleic acid test. Difficulty motivating myself to work and be productive, lacking creativity and feeling in a fog, disconnected from my intuition. A feeling of helplessness, feeling trapped, without any certainty of when this would end. Concern for my fur babies, one of whom recently had a procedure for her ear and needs a follow-up visit to the vet. Worries about how I would find food as my stock steadily grew lower.
In cases like this, it is very easy to go down the rabbit hole and become consumed by the fear. There are a few things, however, that helped to pull me out and that I’d like to share with anyone who has ever gone through a challenging time or at some point struggled with extreme external circumstances outside of your control:
1) Gratitude. My experiences have helped me to realize how lucky I have been to have enough food, hot water (that went out one day too) and many other basic needs that we may often take for granted. And most importantly, I’m grateful that both I and my fur babies have remained healthy throughout this experience.
2) Service. In order to get out of my own head, I offered a free Akashic Records healing ceremony to the community. This helped everyone, including myself, to come together, shift our energetic vibration, connect with a higher energy source and know that we are always guided and connected to an energy of love.
3) Community. During this time there have been many groups formed on wechat (our primary mode of communication and connection in China) to help with an array of different things. There is a community group for the other people living in my lane house, and while most don’t speak English, I appreciated my neighbor downstairs writing me to say that they were requesting an order of milk, eggs and noodles and asking if I wanted to be included. Various groups have formed online for everything from supporting fur babies to doing barre classes together. This has helped me to push past the tendency to self-isolate and realize that support is available when needed.
4) Validate your emotions. I don’t find any extreme to be healthy-forced positivity can lead to suppressing emotions that need to be acknowledged, while dwelling in fear and negativity will keep you in a limbo state and unable to move forward. There can, however, be a happy medium: connect with the emotion, feel it, ask it what it is trying to tell you and what it needs from you. A lot of work around parenting your inner child is connected to these concepts. Then focus on a positive affirmation to move forward so that you don’t dwell in that vibration and attract in unwanted juju. I do this daily, mainly through journaling.
5) Work with color. I actually received this recommendation after going to see a medium. Color does affect your mood. I changed the colors that I was wearing from black to more vivacious ones, put on a few healing crystals and started zentangling each night with my collection of fancy gel pens to reconnect with my creativity.
Most important perhaps is the knowledge that nothing in life is permanent and this too shall pass. While the circumstances have been challenging, I am grateful for the learnings, the self-reflection and the self-growth that these events have inspired. As a healer, I am sure that these experiences will allow me to better help others navigate change and uncertainty in the future.
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