I’ve had so many calls and emails from clients about the Coronavirus that I thought it might be a good idea to put out some ideas on handling the situation that aren’t generally talked about.

There’s a lot of fear involved with this thing. It’s such an unknown, can happen really fast and we’re not used to being so isolated. It’s like we don’t have any more support systems.

And unfortunately, we’ve had contradictory and sometimes very dangerous news related to it.

One problem with fear is what happens to our bodies when we feel it. Did you know our bodies release 1400 physical and chemical reactions as well as hormones when we get stressed or fearful? And even when the fear or stress stops our bodies will still continue to produce adrenaline and cortisol, which affects blood pressure, impairs our memory and immune response, there are digestion problems, blood sugar instability and high levels of cholesterol!

There are many places you can go online and find the typical stress response and fear tips.

BUT…..instead of talking about the general things you can do, I’d like to approach this using tested methods from Neuro Linguistic Programming, Medical Hypnosis, Neural Pathway Restructuring™ and spirituality.

Even though some of these seem so simple they still work!

One of the best tips you can use if you keep running fearful thoughts in your head is to pay attention to what you’re thinking. The minute you hear yourself saying things like:

“What if I get it? (or he/she or my child or my parent) Before going any further with the thought, say very loudly in your head “STOP!” If you do it again….say “STOP!”

Then, replace that thought with another on a more rational note. For instance: “I don’t have it! I’m doing everything I know that will help keep me well. I will stay healthy!”

You might have to do this several times before you stop the negative chatter.

This process eventually stops the repetitive thoughts and it also, unconsciously, gives us a sense of control over the situation. That’s a part of the issue with this virus. We feel like so much is out of our control. So anything we can do to feel like we’re actually doing something will help us handle it.

Another thing you can do to feel in control of this is to use self hypnosis. Hypnosis has had a bad rap for awhile but now hospitals and doctors are using it, first responder units use it and many coaches and therapists do so as well.

It’s not a trick. It’s a way to talk with and utilize the amazing ability of our body and mind.

You can use this simple process to de-stress, begin to “see” your body as a vibrant healthy organism or just as a break from all the craziness.

Go somewhere you can relax and not be disturbed. If it’s not a quiet place, then if possible, wear headphones. Noise really isn’t an issue….I’ve done this sitting at the entrance to Toon Town at Disneyland!

Take a few slow deep breaths. You might try breathing in slowly and then exhale, taking twice as long to do so. After about 5 of these you’re ready for the next step. Now, as you continue to breathe slowly and deliberately, pay attention to how, when you breath in, you can feel the relaxation start at the top of your head and move down your body. You might have to do several of these breaths to get all the way down your body.

Once you’ve got the hang of it……in your mind begin imagining that as your breath moves through and down your body it’s pushing all the stress, unease and fear further and further down your body and out the bottom of your feet. Keep this imagery up until you can feel that there is no more stress or fear sitting in your body.

Then sit with it or just slowly bring yourself back to “reality”.

If you’re more inclined toward the spirituality technique, follow the above to the “next step”.  And then:

…….Focus your attention on the area just above your head. Imagine you can feel a vibrating healing energy of the universe. You might even see it as a shimmering green ball of light. Now as you continue with your slow and deep breaths, imagine this ball of green healing energy of the universe flowing slowly down into your head, neck, shoulders, arms, torso, hips, legs and feet. As you do so, notice that you can also see all the cells in your body beginning to glisten with vibrant health. Not only do they glisten with health they begin to vibrant with it as well.

You can continue this for a while, allowing the energy to just melt into your body as it becomes a greenish glistening body of healthy energy.

Focus on the idea that your cells are healthy and vibrant. Continue with this until you’re ready to come back into the room.

Just to give you an idea of how impactful these techniques can be—when I was in my twenties I was diagnosed with cancer. I had recently completed a course in some of these techniques by an amazing teacher. She had us test our abilities to alter our body’s responses by hooking us up to various machines and then having us change our blood pressures, our heart rate and also our brain waves. I figured if I could do that I could heal myself of cancer. And I did! ( much to the surprise of my doctor) To this day I never had any more cancer.

If you would like more information or suggestions or if you need some help, please contact me at (818) 422-2474 or email me at debra@neuralpathwayrestructuring.com

Stay Well!