Responding from Strength Rather Than Fear in a Crisis Situation

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How people have been responding reminded me of the levels of growth of a human being that I talked about in recent articles and videos.

Many people started stock piling food and essentials like toilet paper and for days there were line ups in stores resulting in empty shelves.

This type of reaction is responding from the self-protection or conformist levels. Fear and blindly following others predominates at these levels. Yet I saw interviews with people in the food supply industry who said there is no need for such concern as the supply chain is strong and food will not be an issue.

At the same time, I noticed the new series on Netflix called Pandemic and was gripped by the information and how well it was presented about past pandemics and the next threat, which is COVID-19 and happening now.

I learned that the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 took 50 million lives after 500 million people contracted it. More people died from this flu than from World Wars I and II combined.

Rather than responding with fear this is an opportunity to function at a higher level, the responsible level. At this higher level we act using all our capacities in the dimensions of life. This means we think clearly about what to do based on the right information. We act with compassion and caring for others. We stay healthy by taking the recommended precautions and boosting our immune system, so should we get ill we are able to shake it quickly.

I am reading more now about the responsible actions governments and health professionals are taking to limit the spread of the virus and find a cure or drug to impede the symptoms that cause death in those most affected.

Even though the measures taken by governments are drastic such as closing all all shopping centers and restaurants for perhaps months, I see few people criticizing these actions. Usually there is an abundance of criticism for any decisions made by politicians, so this may be a sign that people are pulling together and responding positively and responsibly to the crisis.

Moving forward we need to learn from this crisis and look at our own reactions and think about how we can function at the higher responsible level and encourage others to do so. This will lead to greater collaboration throughout the world to prevent these types of situations from occurring in the first place or at least being better prepared to contain these types of outbreaks.

Watching the great documentary series Pandemic illustrates those who are taking such actions and the compassion and dedication they are putting first and foremost.