Thank you for this post, I have shared it with friends. Something truly helpful for tending to my well-being in these times has been to memorize this verse from Rudolf Steiner. I offer it as as a resource for anyone who may resonate with it: "We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes toward Man, out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence - trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening."
Whilst I agree with much of what you say, especially with regards to acknowledging other people's choices; I also struggle with the fact that the UK Govt and NHS response to convid left me with oral cancer and now a speech impediment which impacts on my ability to work (have been an online lecturer for 12 years), impacted on my income for 12 months and at times my confidence especially on days when I know my speech is not clear or going out for a meal or having a takeaway even with friends at times as I can struggle with eating. That part varies and I never know how I am going to be.
Part of my personal response to this is positive. I tell my GP on a regular basis where to get off when he tries to send me for all sorts of cancer checks because I have had cancer. No, it was not genetic, it was trauma induced and caused by your colleagues and peers. I refuse as so many seem to do, to claim to be a 'cancer survivor'. It was a lump, it was removed, no big deal in that regard.
However, I struggle with the concept of everything happens for a reason relative to this. I also lost my dear mum a few months earlier than we probably would have done because she felt compelled to wear a face nappy although I am forever grateful that she did not live to see me undergo my surgery. Only to be assured that the day she died she knew I had a private hospital appt (although obviously, given it was only 3 hours after she passed, I could not attend).
Yes, I struggle remaining positive. I go out, spend time amongst nature, walking, enjoying my dogs. I have never been that materialistic and in later life that social even. But when you realise that something you have said to someone whilst out and about, despite their being ever so polite and making out that they have understood you but knowing that you have not been able to speak with clarity, encourages you towards silence. In many respects, I don't feel comfortable with everyday life never mind the worries I have about the potential evil plans those who have caused this have for us all and its further impact on myself and my family. I cannot fathom a reason and nor do I think I want to for what has happened and what is happening. I try not to wallow in the 'its not fair' but it isn't fair. My consultant may be great and also a non-believer but I should not have needed him, surgery or anything else.
What I've learned is to feel my feelings but to act on my intellect. Feelings are whimsical and subject to change whereas facts are immutable. And for some reason that lets me stay positive for the most part. That and staying in the moment.
Pardon the length of this, but I think it is helpful and I only recently learned/adopted it, but find it very useful.
We're exposed to a lot of negative news/ideas/narrative, especially the last couple of years. The propaganda machine repeats this 24/7/365, so much so it is hard to avoid it. Friends and loved ones around you repeat or want to discuss/debate it. All the while, this is living in your head, some say "rent free". What I heard that I find helpful is to think about the stuff like you think about the arc of a ball thrown a long way. You pay attention to the release of the ball, and then run to where you expect it to fall into your hands. In between time, you either don't look at it at all, or maybe glance at it enough to verify the arc of the ball and your progress to where it will land.
Negative narratives and other stuff bombard us and try to reverberate the narrative message. This isn't Truth. Most times, the narrative is "programming" intended to get you to believe what They want you to believe, e.g. "we (the bad guys) are winning". They want you to be demoralized and easier to defeat and control. If you disallow their messaging to affect you, except when you choose to check in on it (like looking at the arc of the ball in the air), they are not poisoning your mind and heart the rest of the time.
I used to "doom scroll" the internet in the early part of the Plandemic, and it definitely negatively affected my outlook. I burned out and backed off of this after about six months, naturally, but it was awful in the mean time. And I know I repeated a lot of that to my friends and family, making them suffer too (even though they were eager to hear "the latest").
There are some things you want to watch more carefully than others, of course, but for the big stuff, the Bad Guys are (constantly) telling you what they WANT to happen, and hoping things will go their way. If you are demoralized enough, they win. Better to hear them say what they WANT, and then spend your energy Living Life and doing what is really important to you. Don't let them live "rent free" in your head and your heart. Take note, but don't become consumed by it.
Dr. Tess, this may interest you....The real answer !! [understanding evil]
[Lisa Castro]
·
This is probably the best answer I've ever heard to the question, "Why did God create evil?"
Why did God create evil? The answer struck me to the core of my soul!
A professor at the university asked his students the following question:
- Everything that exists was created by God?
One student bravely answered:
- Yes, created by God.
- Did God create everything? - a professor asked.
“Yes, sir,” replied the student.
The professor asked :
- If God created everything, then God created evil, since it exists. And according to the principle that our deeds define ourselves, then God is evil.
The student became silent after hearing such an answer. The professor was very pleased with himself. He boasted to students for proving once again that faith in God is a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said:
- Can I ask you a question, professor?
"Of course," replied the professor.
A student got up and asked:
- Professor, is cold a thing?
- What kind of question? Of course it exists. Have you ever been cold?
Students laughed at the young man's question. The young man answered:
- Actually, sir, cold doesn't exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is actually the absence of heat. A person or object can be studied on whether it has or transmits energy.
Absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit) is a complete absence of heat. All matter becomes inert and unable to react at this temperature. Cold does not exist. We created this word to describe what we feel in the absence of heat.
A student continued:
- Professor, does darkness exist?
— Of course it exists.
- You're wrong again, sir. Darkness also does not exist. Darkness is actually the absence of light. We can study the light but not the darkness. We can use Newton's prism to spread white light across multiple colors and explore the different wavelengths of each color. You can't measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into the world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you tell how dark a certain space is? You measure how much light is presented. Isn't it so? Darkness is a term man uses to describe what happens in the absence of light.
In the end, the young man asked the professor:
- Sir, does evil exist?
This time it was uncertain, the professor answered:
- Of course, as I said before. We see him every day. Cruelty, numerous crimes and violence throughout the world. These examples are nothing but a manifestation of evil.
To this, the student answered:
- Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist for itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is like darkness and cold—a man-made word to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not faith or love, which exist as light and warmth. Evil is the result of the absence of Divine love in the human heart. It’s the kind of cold that comes when there is no heat, or the kind of darkness that comes when there’s no light.
I'm sure many who subscribe to this sort of thinking will find me to be ignorant. But I can't come around to this way of thinking. That quote that you cited means that all of the evil that was perpetrated for the last 3 years, was " meant " to happen.
I do not believe there is any higher power that intended for people to be abused and suffer this way.
Furthermore I feel that the implication of 'only worrying about things that you control', is that you should learn to control ever bigger things. For instance: if I'm currently not able to exert influence on the WHO or the government decisions on pandemics, then I should learn new skill sets so that I can influence those evil decisions. We get the government we deserve and all that.
The energies (esp yours) of fearless pioneering are infinite, because they are powered by love.
For me, Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration helped me reframe trauma as growth; switch dark to light; fear to love, especially to love of our 'self'.
Erik Erikson's Life Stage Theory is fabulous too; emergent design at the level of the soul.
Each of us is on our own path, from conception to whatever follows living in our human form.
Letting go of who/what we imagined ourselves to be and imagined we could/should become, is a grief of profound growth; to real maturity and the fearlessness we knew as little children.
It's in each of our hearts, waiting to be rediscovered.
Imagine the power of increasingly vast numbers of people realising this.
It's happening. Faster, bigger, deeper and more creatively powerfully every moment.
Evil lost to love and goodness long before all the nonsense was started.
How difficult or easy it is for each of us to cultivate optimism in times of adversity appears to me to be largely effected by what is commonly called our "personality types," initially analyzed in great detail by Carl Jung. There are several systems in common use today, and I don't believe any of them could be described as being based on "true science," but nonetheless they can provide a useful terminology for intelligently discussing these seemingly built-in (but not entirely immutable) patterns of reaction to what's going on in the world around us.
I happen to be a textbook example of what the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator system describes as "introverted, intuiting, thinking and perceiving," which is well described at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INTP.html. Because of that I found it a piece of cake to be entirely immune to all of the deliberate fear-mongering behind the "plandemic" right from day one. Compare that to the diametrically opposed "extraverted, sensing, feeling and judging" type described at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESFJ.html and especially under the rubric of "Potential Problem Areas" discussed at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESFJ_per.html.
Because of such built-in differences, each of us has to find our own highly personalized path to what I like to describe as "psycho-social recovery." But most important to me personally throughout all of this COVID debacle has been simply to understand what the heck appears to be going on in the minds of those I interact with based on their innate personality types, without judging them for what appears to me as their natural, built-in "problem areas."
Loved reading this. In acceptance there is peace and that is true. Life is full of hard things. Seeking the LORD will also strengthen one’s resolve to be hopeful. Advise from my mother in law was simple: Find a promise in the Bible and pray it back to God. I soon found that for every need, there is a promise:
Is it peace? “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusts in thee.” Isaiah 26:3
Is it fear? “Fear not for I AM with you; be not dismayed, for I AM your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you.
Is it a need? “And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
There is a treasure trove full of hope found in the living word. Now is the time to dust off our Bibles and find Him who loves us and will see us through.
Thanks Tess for your insights. Some speak of " Covid times" as if it
is in the past. As I see it THEY were just rattling our cage to see to what extent we would comply with idiocy . Throughout, the terrifying part for me has been the feeling of being up against ignorance on the part of people I aways imagined would be WITH me on the barricades. Every time I think of entering a shop I experience a frisson of anxiety thinking of the argument coming about not having a mask. Until I remember that for now we are not required to wear one. I feel intense anger at Gateshead , Fauci, et al for what they have done to the world. I hate the medical profession and would rather die than go into hospital. I am frustrated with doctors who are still looking at their shoes. So I think the trauma is deep. We all have a degree of PTSD
I find daily solace in Nature and in like minded sites like this. But I think the answer is going to be finding community and at last being able to talk openly about what's happening.
Thanks for this. I can really relate to it having felt as you did during the mad Covid time - and I still struggle even now it all had such a negative effect on me. Thanks for the reminder that things do seem to happen for reason, nothing is permanent and you must strive to change what you can and learn to live with what you can't.
Say a hundred good things happen and then a really bad thing happens to cancel out all those good things. Or, say the opposite occurs. Dividing events and occurrences into good and bad is the problem. Labeling everything is what causes pain. If it's called good, you are happy, if it's called bad, you are not. Give up the yo-yo life and see that things just are. Happiness and optimism are not dependent on events being called positive or negative.
Dear Tess, I also am from SA, not born there, but was there from '68 till 2010...had to keep my pecker up in the face of apartheid. I was anti-racist but needed to escape a violent husband in the UK and asked for help from my dad who'd moved to SA long before, it felt the safest place for me and my 3 year old child, so far away from England and nasty husband who would never dream I'd go there.
I think my living in SA with the almost constant feeling of guilt, and despair because I was ok, but the majority were not, was I think, part of what taught me to stay positive. I was scared of the police, I wanted to make friends with black people, I wanted justice to prevail, but had to stay safe for my daughters sake, so I couldn't stick my neck out too far. I wanted to talk politics, but nobody else wanted to, they were too scared or disinterested. I had to stay positive for my daughters sake, which wasn't that difficult, because for the first time in my young life I had Freedom, yes even though Apartheid stopped one crossing the colour barrier, being white was truly privileged and allowed one to do just about everything else except cross the colour boundary. I learned goldsmithing from a friend and opened up my own business, I hitch hiked between Cape Town and Johannesburg, had a coloured friend, learned to drive, went camping into the wilds as often as possible, all things that would have been , from my narrow perspective of life in Northern England, unobtainable...what a wonderful life, but always in the background and around me, be it the pokey servants rooms at the back of white properties, or the 'Whites Only' entrance notices, the reminders of injustice, the faces of dark skinned people who looked down when passing a white person, the violence of the police, constant reminders of cruelty which kept me talking whenever I felt I could, against the travesty of segregation. I think those years of personal empowerment from running my own business combined with a determination to do my little bit to help dismantle that disgusting regime, plus having to stay on the straight and narrow in order to keep my daughter safe, infused me with a determined stubbornness in the face of adversity, it also taught me love and empathy, of which I didn't have much when a teenager...I thought people were awful and preferred animals (to cut a long story short)
I never thought that I'd be faced once again with that awful 'us and them' scenario, albeit a rather different one, never thought I'd be faced with even greater travesties against people, than those already played out back then, which feels like a stone in my heart on some days, but whenever I get too low, something in me grabs a hold, and I remind myself to be grateful for what I have for the sun shining (when it does), for the lovely people with whom I have contact; actually thanks to this unfolding debacle...My stubbornness kicks in, my determination to do whatever it is I feel capable of doing to stop the continuation of all the cruel stupidities being perpetrated by the careless, greedy or sleepy. We shall overcome!
Thank you Tess for your wise words. I have turned the mirror on myself more recently. It would be foolish and arrogant not to learn lessons about oneself from this pandemic, even if I consider myself 'awake'. Being unvaccinated, I don't consider myself brave and a freedom fighter. Far from it. Luckily for me, I just happened to trust the right people. But I have felt very ashamed for my cowardice and negativity, and I'm not surprised my family and friends don't tend to want to listen to me, as I can get very dark. I've battled this aspect of myself for years, but it is very entrenched, and numerous therapies don't seem to have helped. True leadership is being able to offer hope and compassion, and only then, perhaps in time others may come over to our side. Unfortunately, endless 'truth bombs' just frighten people away, and I don't blame them. What I have been through, this 'awakening', has so far been disturbing, isolating and upsetting.The endless nights I've sat up alone in bed over the last 3 years, wondering what on earth is happening in the world, questing whether my family are in fact right, and I am just brainwashed by conspiracy I have read online. But I don't think so. I am alone and unhappy, but not crazy. I remember reading Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archilpelago and thinking, 'Are we teetering on the brink of this happening again in my life time?' My lovely family wonder why I chose to upset myself reading such things, and they probably have a point. They live more in the moment, and I consider that beautiful, not naive. The only conclusion I could draw for this isolation and suffering I have endured - and I desperately needed to find some sort of meaning - was that I was on this path for a reason, so I concluded, maybe it is to help others. I hope that is a sincere thought, and not arrogance on my part.
Thank you for this post, I have shared it with friends. Something truly helpful for tending to my well-being in these times has been to memorize this verse from Rudolf Steiner. I offer it as as a resource for anyone who may resonate with it: "We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes toward Man, out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future.
We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-directive full of wisdom.
It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely, to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence - trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly, nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us.
And let us seek the awakening from within ourselves, every morning and every evening."
-Rudolf Steiner
Whilst I agree with much of what you say, especially with regards to acknowledging other people's choices; I also struggle with the fact that the UK Govt and NHS response to convid left me with oral cancer and now a speech impediment which impacts on my ability to work (have been an online lecturer for 12 years), impacted on my income for 12 months and at times my confidence especially on days when I know my speech is not clear or going out for a meal or having a takeaway even with friends at times as I can struggle with eating. That part varies and I never know how I am going to be.
Part of my personal response to this is positive. I tell my GP on a regular basis where to get off when he tries to send me for all sorts of cancer checks because I have had cancer. No, it was not genetic, it was trauma induced and caused by your colleagues and peers. I refuse as so many seem to do, to claim to be a 'cancer survivor'. It was a lump, it was removed, no big deal in that regard.
However, I struggle with the concept of everything happens for a reason relative to this. I also lost my dear mum a few months earlier than we probably would have done because she felt compelled to wear a face nappy although I am forever grateful that she did not live to see me undergo my surgery. Only to be assured that the day she died she knew I had a private hospital appt (although obviously, given it was only 3 hours after she passed, I could not attend).
Yes, I struggle remaining positive. I go out, spend time amongst nature, walking, enjoying my dogs. I have never been that materialistic and in later life that social even. But when you realise that something you have said to someone whilst out and about, despite their being ever so polite and making out that they have understood you but knowing that you have not been able to speak with clarity, encourages you towards silence. In many respects, I don't feel comfortable with everyday life never mind the worries I have about the potential evil plans those who have caused this have for us all and its further impact on myself and my family. I cannot fathom a reason and nor do I think I want to for what has happened and what is happening. I try not to wallow in the 'its not fair' but it isn't fair. My consultant may be great and also a non-believer but I should not have needed him, surgery or anything else.
What I've learned is to feel my feelings but to act on my intellect. Feelings are whimsical and subject to change whereas facts are immutable. And for some reason that lets me stay positive for the most part. That and staying in the moment.
Came across this and thought of you, Tess. You're such an inspiration!
"You finally fall asleep.
And when you wake up, it's true.
You are part of a brand-new world."
Haruki Murakami
Pardon the length of this, but I think it is helpful and I only recently learned/adopted it, but find it very useful.
We're exposed to a lot of negative news/ideas/narrative, especially the last couple of years. The propaganda machine repeats this 24/7/365, so much so it is hard to avoid it. Friends and loved ones around you repeat or want to discuss/debate it. All the while, this is living in your head, some say "rent free". What I heard that I find helpful is to think about the stuff like you think about the arc of a ball thrown a long way. You pay attention to the release of the ball, and then run to where you expect it to fall into your hands. In between time, you either don't look at it at all, or maybe glance at it enough to verify the arc of the ball and your progress to where it will land.
Negative narratives and other stuff bombard us and try to reverberate the narrative message. This isn't Truth. Most times, the narrative is "programming" intended to get you to believe what They want you to believe, e.g. "we (the bad guys) are winning". They want you to be demoralized and easier to defeat and control. If you disallow their messaging to affect you, except when you choose to check in on it (like looking at the arc of the ball in the air), they are not poisoning your mind and heart the rest of the time.
I used to "doom scroll" the internet in the early part of the Plandemic, and it definitely negatively affected my outlook. I burned out and backed off of this after about six months, naturally, but it was awful in the mean time. And I know I repeated a lot of that to my friends and family, making them suffer too (even though they were eager to hear "the latest").
There are some things you want to watch more carefully than others, of course, but for the big stuff, the Bad Guys are (constantly) telling you what they WANT to happen, and hoping things will go their way. If you are demoralized enough, they win. Better to hear them say what they WANT, and then spend your energy Living Life and doing what is really important to you. Don't let them live "rent free" in your head and your heart. Take note, but don't become consumed by it.
Thanks for listening! :)
Dr. Tess, this may interest you....The real answer !! [understanding evil]
[Lisa Castro]
·
This is probably the best answer I've ever heard to the question, "Why did God create evil?"
Why did God create evil? The answer struck me to the core of my soul!
A professor at the university asked his students the following question:
- Everything that exists was created by God?
One student bravely answered:
- Yes, created by God.
- Did God create everything? - a professor asked.
“Yes, sir,” replied the student.
The professor asked :
- If God created everything, then God created evil, since it exists. And according to the principle that our deeds define ourselves, then God is evil.
The student became silent after hearing such an answer. The professor was very pleased with himself. He boasted to students for proving once again that faith in God is a myth.
Another student raised his hand and said:
- Can I ask you a question, professor?
"Of course," replied the professor.
A student got up and asked:
- Professor, is cold a thing?
- What kind of question? Of course it exists. Have you ever been cold?
Students laughed at the young man's question. The young man answered:
- Actually, sir, cold doesn't exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is actually the absence of heat. A person or object can be studied on whether it has or transmits energy.
Absolute zero (-460 degrees Fahrenheit) is a complete absence of heat. All matter becomes inert and unable to react at this temperature. Cold does not exist. We created this word to describe what we feel in the absence of heat.
A student continued:
- Professor, does darkness exist?
— Of course it exists.
- You're wrong again, sir. Darkness also does not exist. Darkness is actually the absence of light. We can study the light but not the darkness. We can use Newton's prism to spread white light across multiple colors and explore the different wavelengths of each color. You can't measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into the world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you tell how dark a certain space is? You measure how much light is presented. Isn't it so? Darkness is a term man uses to describe what happens in the absence of light.
In the end, the young man asked the professor:
- Sir, does evil exist?
This time it was uncertain, the professor answered:
- Of course, as I said before. We see him every day. Cruelty, numerous crimes and violence throughout the world. These examples are nothing but a manifestation of evil.
To this, the student answered:
- Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist for itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is like darkness and cold—a man-made word to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not faith or love, which exist as light and warmth. Evil is the result of the absence of Divine love in the human heart. It’s the kind of cold that comes when there is no heat, or the kind of darkness that comes when there’s no light.
The student's name was Albert Einstein.
4
I'm sure many who subscribe to this sort of thinking will find me to be ignorant. But I can't come around to this way of thinking. That quote that you cited means that all of the evil that was perpetrated for the last 3 years, was " meant " to happen.
I do not believe there is any higher power that intended for people to be abused and suffer this way.
Furthermore I feel that the implication of 'only worrying about things that you control', is that you should learn to control ever bigger things. For instance: if I'm currently not able to exert influence on the WHO or the government decisions on pandemics, then I should learn new skill sets so that I can influence those evil decisions. We get the government we deserve and all that.
Thanks Dr Tess for your beautiful work as ever.
IMHO:
The energies (esp yours) of fearless pioneering are infinite, because they are powered by love.
For me, Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration helped me reframe trauma as growth; switch dark to light; fear to love, especially to love of our 'self'.
Erik Erikson's Life Stage Theory is fabulous too; emergent design at the level of the soul.
Each of us is on our own path, from conception to whatever follows living in our human form.
Letting go of who/what we imagined ourselves to be and imagined we could/should become, is a grief of profound growth; to real maturity and the fearlessness we knew as little children.
It's in each of our hearts, waiting to be rediscovered.
Imagine the power of increasingly vast numbers of people realising this.
It's happening. Faster, bigger, deeper and more creatively powerfully every moment.
Evil lost to love and goodness long before all the nonsense was started.
Thanks and infinite love to all, Alan x
P.S. Here's a summary of Positive Disintegration for those anyone interested: https://www.businessballs.com/blog/personality-development-through-positive-disintegration/
How difficult or easy it is for each of us to cultivate optimism in times of adversity appears to me to be largely effected by what is commonly called our "personality types," initially analyzed in great detail by Carl Jung. There are several systems in common use today, and I don't believe any of them could be described as being based on "true science," but nonetheless they can provide a useful terminology for intelligently discussing these seemingly built-in (but not entirely immutable) patterns of reaction to what's going on in the world around us.
I happen to be a textbook example of what the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator system describes as "introverted, intuiting, thinking and perceiving," which is well described at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/INTP.html. Because of that I found it a piece of cake to be entirely immune to all of the deliberate fear-mongering behind the "plandemic" right from day one. Compare that to the diametrically opposed "extraverted, sensing, feeling and judging" type described at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESFJ.html and especially under the rubric of "Potential Problem Areas" discussed at http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESFJ_per.html.
Because of such built-in differences, each of us has to find our own highly personalized path to what I like to describe as "psycho-social recovery." But most important to me personally throughout all of this COVID debacle has been simply to understand what the heck appears to be going on in the minds of those I interact with based on their innate personality types, without judging them for what appears to me as their natural, built-in "problem areas."
Loved reading this. In acceptance there is peace and that is true. Life is full of hard things. Seeking the LORD will also strengthen one’s resolve to be hopeful. Advise from my mother in law was simple: Find a promise in the Bible and pray it back to God. I soon found that for every need, there is a promise:
Is it peace? “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee because he trusts in thee.” Isaiah 26:3
Is it fear? “Fear not for I AM with you; be not dismayed, for I AM your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you.
Is it a need? “And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
There is a treasure trove full of hope found in the living word. Now is the time to dust off our Bibles and find Him who loves us and will see us through.
Thanks Tess for your insights. Some speak of " Covid times" as if it
is in the past. As I see it THEY were just rattling our cage to see to what extent we would comply with idiocy . Throughout, the terrifying part for me has been the feeling of being up against ignorance on the part of people I aways imagined would be WITH me on the barricades. Every time I think of entering a shop I experience a frisson of anxiety thinking of the argument coming about not having a mask. Until I remember that for now we are not required to wear one. I feel intense anger at Gateshead , Fauci, et al for what they have done to the world. I hate the medical profession and would rather die than go into hospital. I am frustrated with doctors who are still looking at their shoes. So I think the trauma is deep. We all have a degree of PTSD
I find daily solace in Nature and in like minded sites like this. But I think the answer is going to be finding community and at last being able to talk openly about what's happening.
Thanks for this. I can really relate to it having felt as you did during the mad Covid time - and I still struggle even now it all had such a negative effect on me. Thanks for the reminder that things do seem to happen for reason, nothing is permanent and you must strive to change what you can and learn to live with what you can't.
Say a hundred good things happen and then a really bad thing happens to cancel out all those good things. Or, say the opposite occurs. Dividing events and occurrences into good and bad is the problem. Labeling everything is what causes pain. If it's called good, you are happy, if it's called bad, you are not. Give up the yo-yo life and see that things just are. Happiness and optimism are not dependent on events being called positive or negative.
Dear Tess, I also am from SA, not born there, but was there from '68 till 2010...had to keep my pecker up in the face of apartheid. I was anti-racist but needed to escape a violent husband in the UK and asked for help from my dad who'd moved to SA long before, it felt the safest place for me and my 3 year old child, so far away from England and nasty husband who would never dream I'd go there.
I think my living in SA with the almost constant feeling of guilt, and despair because I was ok, but the majority were not, was I think, part of what taught me to stay positive. I was scared of the police, I wanted to make friends with black people, I wanted justice to prevail, but had to stay safe for my daughters sake, so I couldn't stick my neck out too far. I wanted to talk politics, but nobody else wanted to, they were too scared or disinterested. I had to stay positive for my daughters sake, which wasn't that difficult, because for the first time in my young life I had Freedom, yes even though Apartheid stopped one crossing the colour barrier, being white was truly privileged and allowed one to do just about everything else except cross the colour boundary. I learned goldsmithing from a friend and opened up my own business, I hitch hiked between Cape Town and Johannesburg, had a coloured friend, learned to drive, went camping into the wilds as often as possible, all things that would have been , from my narrow perspective of life in Northern England, unobtainable...what a wonderful life, but always in the background and around me, be it the pokey servants rooms at the back of white properties, or the 'Whites Only' entrance notices, the reminders of injustice, the faces of dark skinned people who looked down when passing a white person, the violence of the police, constant reminders of cruelty which kept me talking whenever I felt I could, against the travesty of segregation. I think those years of personal empowerment from running my own business combined with a determination to do my little bit to help dismantle that disgusting regime, plus having to stay on the straight and narrow in order to keep my daughter safe, infused me with a determined stubbornness in the face of adversity, it also taught me love and empathy, of which I didn't have much when a teenager...I thought people were awful and preferred animals (to cut a long story short)
I never thought that I'd be faced once again with that awful 'us and them' scenario, albeit a rather different one, never thought I'd be faced with even greater travesties against people, than those already played out back then, which feels like a stone in my heart on some days, but whenever I get too low, something in me grabs a hold, and I remind myself to be grateful for what I have for the sun shining (when it does), for the lovely people with whom I have contact; actually thanks to this unfolding debacle...My stubbornness kicks in, my determination to do whatever it is I feel capable of doing to stop the continuation of all the cruel stupidities being perpetrated by the careless, greedy or sleepy. We shall overcome!
Thank you Tess for your wise words. I have turned the mirror on myself more recently. It would be foolish and arrogant not to learn lessons about oneself from this pandemic, even if I consider myself 'awake'. Being unvaccinated, I don't consider myself brave and a freedom fighter. Far from it. Luckily for me, I just happened to trust the right people. But I have felt very ashamed for my cowardice and negativity, and I'm not surprised my family and friends don't tend to want to listen to me, as I can get very dark. I've battled this aspect of myself for years, but it is very entrenched, and numerous therapies don't seem to have helped. True leadership is being able to offer hope and compassion, and only then, perhaps in time others may come over to our side. Unfortunately, endless 'truth bombs' just frighten people away, and I don't blame them. What I have been through, this 'awakening', has so far been disturbing, isolating and upsetting.The endless nights I've sat up alone in bed over the last 3 years, wondering what on earth is happening in the world, questing whether my family are in fact right, and I am just brainwashed by conspiracy I have read online. But I don't think so. I am alone and unhappy, but not crazy. I remember reading Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archilpelago and thinking, 'Are we teetering on the brink of this happening again in my life time?' My lovely family wonder why I chose to upset myself reading such things, and they probably have a point. They live more in the moment, and I consider that beautiful, not naive. The only conclusion I could draw for this isolation and suffering I have endured - and I desperately needed to find some sort of meaning - was that I was on this path for a reason, so I concluded, maybe it is to help others. I hope that is a sincere thought, and not arrogance on my part.
Fron the beginning I have appreciated your support and efforts for all. Glad to see that you are living in Truth. God Bless you.