Reclaiming Our Sacred Selves: Lessons from the Pandemic

I don’t know how many of you are feeling the ‘thick’ and heavy energy out there.  If you are a Sensitive like me, you are feeling it.  People who are Sensitives are like tuning forks.  Not only do they deeply feel the energy in their own life but also the energy that surrounds them.  If you’ve have had trouble sleeping, feel waves of fatigue and heaviness, feel like you are walking through sludge and sometimes weighted down by what can feel like a low great depression, take heart, you are not alone.

I am always trying to decipher the energies at work and view our current reality from an arial view or a larger context.  This helps me stay connected with my True Nature as best as I can especially in times of chaos and confusion, like what we are currently in.

Cycles and rhythms are ever present in Nature.  The Life/Death/Life cycle is an integral part of life on Earth. Day turns into night and night into day, the seasons cycle, as do our bodies.  Our creative process also goes through cycles.  Menstruating women best understand these cycles as they unfold monthly in their bodies. Hormones are synced with phases of the moon, as highs and lows align with the ebb and flow of emotions and body fluids.  After all, we are made of Nature herself, so it would make sense that our bodies would cycle like Nature does.  The Western culture does not view life cyclically. We are not conditioned to honor rhythms.  Instead, our rational mind and our egos rule our lives and define our cultural context.  Even our goals, linear and expansive, are merely focused on financial gain and cash flow, power and status.  Getting to the ‘top of the ladder’ at all costs is considered a supreme value. The only way to fulfill this is to reject the sacred and rhythmic cycles of life.  I consider this way of living unnatural.

Given this ‘unnatural’ mental construct we are currently living from, it would appear that by extension, our perceptions of the COVID pandemic would also go against the natural order of things.  Many at this time see the Pandemic as an interference with their goals and the unnatural life they have normalized, rather than a symbolic lesson to turn their focus inward for the purpose of reflecting and transforming this “unnatural” state of perspective and behavior.  We have a tremendous opportunity for a course correction at this time.  Instead, we are feeling agitated and angry and behave in unkind ways towards one another.  To get through this time transformed, we must cultivate patience and kindness and reflect on the symbolic meaning of what is upon us.

Living from our current value system is exhausting.  Our corporate culture is inhumane and locust-like, focused merely on productivity for cash flow. From this perspective, people are viewed as commodities and consumers.  Those who fall victim to this cultural mindset endure moral injury, burnout, depression and lack of meaning.  As a result, relational connection falls by the wayside leading to soul loss.  Feeling trapped in this rut has been normalized. To reclaim our health, it is imperative we step off this treadmill.

If you are feeling any of the above afflictions, it is time to pause and reevaluate what is of intrinsic value to you.  Is it money, progress, status, acquisition?  Is it health, balance, harmony or meaning?  It is nearly impossible to live from the former and be healthy.  Aligning with the latter promises a sustainable and meaningful life. We so need to reconnect with our intuitive nature, the Feminine principle, the part of us that values life, health, relationship, inner growth and spirituality more than our current collective values.

The word apocalypse when translated from Greek means, “to pull the lid off something.”  Throughout history an ‘apocalypse’ has been known to occur when we stray from intrinsic values, our spiritual selves, from kindness and love.

My observation is the COVID pandemic has apocalypsed the shadow of our society, not created it.  We have been going down the wrong path for many decades, choosing material rather than spiritual values, exploiting Nature in hundreds of ways, sprawling further and further into the wilderness and tearing it down for our personal use.  We’ve also forgotten what our religions instruct us to do – to be kind and love one another despite our differences, and to be ever present in sickness and in health.  They all teach us to engage in healthy discourse, to love diversity, to gain perspective, to deepen our sense of awe and wonder and to honor Nature.  Instead, we have become a ‘cancel’ culture that normalizes bullying and confirmation bias.

As a physician, I am stunned at the degree to which people have abused their bodies during the Pandemic.  Now more than ever, health should be considered a priority and elevated to a sacred level.  Health is not given to us, it must be earned.  We have normalized lifestyles that are unnatural and promote illness, not health. Reclaiming our health is a choice, one that is now of utmost importance.  Making conscious choices takes work and effort but is the ONLY way to restore well-being.

I consider this Pandemic as a powerful opportunity for a corrective experience, for sifting and sorting through what we truly value, for questioning the wisdom of our ways.  More and more, I find myself questioning who I am, why am I here, what truly matters to me, and what I want to contribute to this world.  We are experiencing the consequences of going off the heart centered path.  Collectively we are in the part of the Life/Death/Life cycle where we need to die to our unhealthy ways so we can transform our collective consciousness.

I invite all of you this Fall Season to take the time to begin repairing your relationship with yourself, so you can feel more aligned with what is sacred and open your heart just a little more every day, practice kindness when you feel like reacting, and begin your journey towards healing and repair.  Remaining open to learning and staying a little more aware and awake go a long way towards healing moral injury.  Use this time to align with who you really are and why you are here, what really matters to you and how you can experience meaning in every day.  Sometimes small acts of kindness towards ourselves and others can open this door.

Our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health is interwoven.  To reclaim it, we must choose to work on it.  We have the potential to come out of this time with more integrity, kindness, love, and wisdom, but this will require us to choose more consciously than we have been.  Transformation is a courageous path and one that is now necessary for our very survival.

I believe we are up for this task.  Do you?

©November2021/October2021 Kalpana (Rose) M. Kumar M.D., CEO and Medical Director, The Ommani Center for Integrative Medicine, Pewaukee, WI. www.ommanicenter.com   Author of Becoming Real: Reclaiming Your Health in Midlife (2^nd Edition), Medial Press, 2014. Dr. Kumar is currently accepting new patients. Call 262.695.5311 for an appointment, either virtual or in-person.