If I had to describe 2020 in one word it would be ‘Uncertainty’.

Global uncertainty about the present and the future.

Uncertainty about the virus:
Should we be afraid of it and how afraid should we be?
What measures should be taken to keep us safe? Who has the expertise to know what is true, and who is telling the truth? Do they know the truth? Who can we trust?

Uncertainty about our health and well-being:
Are we safe? How likely is it we will get it? When we get infected, will we get very sick or die? Will my family be safe? How contagious is this thing? How long will this thing last? Is it safe to go to a hospital or doctor’s office when I need to?

Uncertainty about the economy and financial well-being:
Will I be able to go back to work (or school)? Is it safe to go back to work (or school)? Should businesses (or schools) close? Re-open? Stay closed? Will the government support me? Will l survive and be able to support myself and my family?

Uncertainty about how we...

An Apple a Day

The mind is like a garden. You get what you cultivate. Your garden can be healthy, productive, and produce a healthy crop as long as you pay attention, put in personal effort, and apply your skill and care meticulously.

Your well-being and health depend on how you tend to your MIND.

If you are not skillful at mastering the mind, the mind is in control of YOU and it will pull you in all directions. This is exhausting, counter productive, it is the cause of your pain and struggles, and it blocks your progress in your business and your life.

What does it take to grow a healthy, productive garden?

1. Effort

I am looking at our garden right now. It's lush and green. We put a lot of work into it:

• We carefully constructed our garden boxes.
• We mixed the soil, manure, peat moss, and vermiculite, based on research and know-how of garden experts.
• Each box was filled with the soil, one wheelbarrow load at a time.
• The garden boxes were mapped out on paper, with the...

“Economic hardship: Yes, very bad, not death. Emotional stress from being locked in a house: Very bad, not death. Domestic violence on the increase: Very bad, not death. And not death of someone else,” Governor Cuomo.

The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said the economic devastation is ‘not worse than death’.

I beg to differ, strongly. This virus is not worse than domestic violence, abuse, desolation, and ongoing emotional stress. But:

Who am I, or who is anyone to decide which sacrifice is justifiable?

His statement is wrong in two ways:

1. The virus is deadly

(99%-99.9% of people that get infected with the virus survive, although the numbers are so skewed, nobody really knows...)

The public is suffering from anxiety, fear, and worry about this virus because they have been convinced that this is a very deadly virus and we should do everything we can to prevent the spread of infection. First, we were told to stay home and social distance in...

Mindfulness in the Time of Pandemic

Birken Forest Monastery

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." —Viktor Frankl

Disclaimer

I am not an expert in statistics, epidemiology, virology, medicine, or pandemics.
I am just a curious geek who is interested in numbers and research. I am sharing the numbers as they were April 27th in BC and Canada. No judgements or opinions. You can have your own.
My goal with this video is to ease the stress and drama a little bit.
I realize that we won’t know how many people have been expose or infected until enough antigen tests have been done.

Pandemic numbers for Canada, BC, and Interior on April 27th 2020.

**(I also added the numbers as per May 2nd, as it took me a while to make the video. See spread sheet below.)

It's been a few months since the W.H.O. declared a pandemic. The media has been greatly responsible for spreading panic, drama, half truths, or plain lies.

I decided to have a look at the numbers in Canada and BC, and maybe bring some ease and relief from the panic and the drama.

I am not drawing conclusions or stating my opinion. Just...

Master your mind

What blocks you from seeing possibilities is fear. How do you shift from uncertainty to possibility, when fear is a product of uncertainty?

BE OPEN and challenge information itself!

This is for the more advanced thinkers out there.

In the quantum world there is nothing but possibilities. We choose only one reality by observing it and making it so.

What if all of the information out there is a possible truth? What if nobody is wrong or right, or everyone is a little right and a little wrong?

What if the information you base your reality on is limited, incomplete, or even wrong?

When you are living with fear, even if that fear is running in the background and you are not always aware of it, your ability to reason and question information diminishes, or disappears. (Read my previous two blogs to learn what you could do about that)

Questioning is for the more advanced thinkers who are able to shift from a Survival mindset to a Powerful mindset. It is for those who are...

Control your Perception

Feeling insecure and anxious doesn't just appear out of nowhere. It is a response to a signal.

What is the signal? It is an experience that holds information.

Information itself is neutral. It isn't good or bad, right or wrong. We give information a meaning, in other words, we perceive something as bad, or good.

Anxiety then, is the response to our perception of information.

What meaning are you giving to this experience of uncertainty? The meaning you give it determines how you feel and how you act: what you think, what you say, what you do.

A way to manage how information effects your emotions and behaviour is by changing your perception. What other meaning can you give this experience so that it does not trigger anxiety?

Information controls your perception. Perception controls your emotions. Your emotions control your behaviour. In short: Information controls your behaviour.

This is the chain of reaction:

Information...

"FEAR, STEP ASIDE PLEASE!"

Fear is a function of the brain and nervous system to keep you safe when there is an immediate threat. But what if the threat is ongoing? Like right now? It causes many to live in a constant state of emergency.

When people are living in survival mode, stress hormones chronically flood the body causing anxiety, overwhelm, but also fatigue and a compromised immune system. Chronic stress negatively affects your immune-system and your genes. It can erode your physical and your mental health.

In other words:  Fear itself is worse than that what you fear.

Unless you do something about the source of your fear: INFORMATION

1. Mindset and Bias

We live in a time with an abundance of information available.

Your brain's job is to filter information. You won't ever know about most of what is happening in your environment, you only become aware of a fraction of it. Only information that your brain deems relevant to you in any moment will make it through to...

Me, being the good girl, learning how to be nice. Now, I'm learning how to be more 'ME' instead!

Being nice and politically correct is bad for your health.

The pain people are struggling with is UNACCEPTABLE and UNNECESSARY.

Emotional pain and physical pain.

Mostly emotional pain, because the root of most physical pain is emotional pain. Really.

Do you know when emotions express themselves in physical pain?

When you don’t express them. When you don’t express yourself.

One way of stuffing down feelings of anger, sadness, or fear for example is to cover it up and be polite, be nice, don’t say or do things that might hurt peoples feelings. Don’t say or do anything that may turn people against you. What if they don’t like you?

We all do this to some degree. And as long as you are aware of it, in control of it, and deal with it in a healthy way, it is not a problem.
But most of us are not even aware, let alone dealing with it in a healthy way.

It is a big...

Radio Interview with Erna on Voice of the Shuswap by Chris Deye

One day I met with Chris to do an interview about Toastmasters and their upcoming anniversary. It turned in to this:

A completely impromptu interview with Chris, about how I ended up here doing what I do now.

Lots of enthusiasm!

And no, I was not high on caffeine, just excited!