How to Stay Out of Overwhelm During the Coronavirus Pandemic

This morning I received a text from a client cancelling her appointment that was scheduled to begin in less than one hour.

She had just found out that her 87-year-old sister-in-law had passed away from coronavirus.

She needed time to process, time to be quiet, time to feel her feelings.

Just yesterday I did a healing for a coach in Costa Rica.

He had been having unrelenting headaches.

“I feel a tremendous sense of heaviness and pressure,” he explained to me.

Like many empathic people around the globe, he couldn’t help but feel the grief, panic and uncertainty overwhelming the globe.

“I just need to snap out of my funk,” another healer friend emailed me. 

Even the most grounded, spiritually connected people I know are struggling to maintain our center right now. 

I’ve had my down days and if you’re reading this article I’m sure you have too.

Here are six ways we can stay out of the overwhelm during the coronavirus pandemic:

1. Connect to the divine in whatever way works best for you.
2. Connect to the healing power of nature.
3. Clear your energy frequently throughout the day.
4. Stay out of other people’s stories.
5. Connect to your own purpose.
6. Give yourself quiet time to process.

Connect to the divine in whatever way works best for you. 

For years I have started my mornings with prayer, breathwork and meditation.

Now more than ever, I think, having a regular practice to connect to God is essential.

I pray throughout the day and pay attention to the guidance my soul rather than my ego mind receives.

“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto  thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Connect to the healing power of nature. 

A fellow healer in South Africa just texted me this morning that he has been in lockdown for the past two weeks. The government there will not allow anyone outside even to walk their dog.

In whatever way you can, ground your energy to the earth by connecting to nature.

For me, I have been walking my dog Dixie in deserted parks here in Atlanta.

Gaze upon flowers. As readers of www.catherinecarrigan.com are well aware, I find great solace in my orchids. Where ever you are on the planet even in lock down you can connect to the sky.

If you are able to get outside, walk barefoot, tend your garden or listen to the trees.

Nature withstands the winds of change and reminds us that the only constant is ceaseless transformation.

Clear your energy frequently throughout the day. 

When I tune into the energy of what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, it feels very heavy at the moment.

This is not the time to try to figure anything out.

Recognize that what’s going on is bigger than anything you personally can fix, resolve, shift or transform. We can only really ride the wave.

If you try to run this heavy energy through your own mind-body system you will most likely be feeling overwhelmed, anxious, exhausted and depressed.

Qi gong offers a simple way to clear your energy.

Simply rub your hands together, gathering chi. Set your intention to clear any energies you may have picked up. Then pass your hands over your head three times.

As I do this, I usually say a prayer, “I clear my energy in the name of God the Father, I clear my energy in the name of Jesus the Son, I clear my energy in the name of the Holy Ghost.”

I grew up in the Christian tradition. I have great respect for all spiritual traditions so you may need to change the wording to align with your own beliefs.

If you are feeling heavy, anxious, exhausted or depressed you may feel better by clearing your energy.

Other methods that also work include taking a warm bath with 1 cup Epsom salts and 1 cup baking soda and sitting in the bath for 20 minutes.

Stay out of other people’s stories.

Recognize that everybody has a story, everybody has a narrative their ego mind tells about what’s going on and why. 

It’s a spiritual principle that everybody gets to decide their own interpretation of what’s happening in their life.

This is a time when everybody’s stories are getting shoved in our face.

So, for example, if you have been telling yourself a victim story, it may sound like this, “I never get…No matter how hard I try, I can’t….Other people get X but I don’t get Y. What’s the use? Life sucks.” 

If on the other hand, you tell yourself you are a survivor, your story may be going something like this, “Well this has never happened before in my life but I will figure this out. I will survive. I will come out better on the other side, God willing.”

You may not even realize you are running other people’s stories through your mind body system but if you do you will literally be processing their energy and may end up feeling fried.

It’s enough right now to process your own thoughts and emotions without trying to fix, heal or process anybody else’s energy. 

This is how I like to explain this phenomenon.

You may know my name is Catherine Carrigan but you don’t know what happened to me when I was four years old.

You don’t know everything about me, never can and never will.

When you take what you observe about me and run it through your mind-body system, that’s like running my energy through your own file cabinet and trying to find a match. 

What makes sense to you? What matches and what doesn’t? What feels wrong to you? What feels right? It can never quite make total sense.

Because my story, my energy and my emotions are not yours there will be a certain jarring effect if you try to process those frequencies yourself and you can feel easily overwhelmed. 

Let’s take an even more obvious example.

Think about the two brothers who blew up the Boston marathon in 2013.

I am not a criminal nor a mass murderer.

When I feel angry I never plan a bombing that will kill 3 people and injure hundreds.

If I try to run their energy through my own mind-body system not only will not find a match, that energy is literally toxic to me.

Give other people permission to have their own story about what’s happening.

Stay out of other people’s interpretations.

Notice what you are telling yourself.

Realize that you are here to do you, not anybody else.

Connect to your own purpose.

Reminding yourself why you are here, what your life is all about and what you are here to do in this lifetime on this planet you can stay out of the panic. 

Stay on track with your purpose as much as possible.

For example, my purpose is all about healing.

I said to my boyfriend last week, “I can help people whether or not I make any money.”

This is also true for you – your purpose has nothing to do with your ability or inability to earn a living.

Because you are a soul, your soul always has purpose and meaning.

I write about this at length in my latest book, Reading the Soul. 

If you are not sure what your purpose is, this is a great time to inquire within to find out.

Your soul purpose is what you yearn to do no matter what anybody else says, whether or not it makes you rich or poor, what you would do if you had only 24 hours to live and what uplifts your heart.

Give yourself quiet time to process.

Although I consider myself a highly productive person (I published nine books in the past 10 years and run the Natural Healing Show for UK Health Radio for a weekly audience of over 35,000 people around the globe), I have noticed that it has felt as if time has slowed down and I am accomplishing less than usual and spending more time just being.

If I can take a one hour walk or teach yoga or qi gong on Zoom, to talk to a few friends on the phone and to get a good night’s sleep, that’s a good day right now.

If you study the Holmes and Rahe stress scale, the more changes any individual processes within a 12 month period, the higher their stress level.

As a collective human race, we are processing huge changes to our health, our money, our ways of working, the way we educate our children and even our relationships because we are all cooped up together at home.

As of today, Friday, April 10, 2020, over 17,000 people in the U.S. alone have died and over 99,000 people have passed away from coronavirus around the globe.

This is a lot to process – both collectively and individually.

The University of Washington Institute of Health Metrics predicts that in two days, on Sunday, April 12, 2020, will be the peak day of number of deaths in the U.S. 

Here in the state of Georgia, we still have 11 days to go before the largest number of deaths in one 24-hour period are anticipated.

Again, this is a lot to process.

In life, there are three things that are absolutely unavoidable – death, taxes and emotions.

You can’t sweep what you are feeling under the rug.

I’m always saying that sometimes the quickest way through the mud is actually through the mud – not over the mud, around the mud or hovering 10 feet in outer space.

The more you can summon kindness and compassion for yourself as we as a human race go through these changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the easier time you will have getting out in a better frame of mind on the other side.

What is healing? Healing happens when you stay in your own center.

To set up an appointment for a medical intuitive reading or healing work, email [email protected] or call 678-612-8816. If you are outside the U.S., please call via WhatsApp. I can work with you from anywhere in the world by phone, Skype or Zoom video conference.

To join us for yoga and qi gong classes via video conference right now, email [email protected] or call 678-612-8816 to receive the code. Yoga classes meet via Zoom.us on Tuesdays and Thursdays 7:30 to 9 p.m. EST and Thursdays 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST. Qi gong meets on Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. EST.