Originally published at Medium on March 21, 2020
I was eight years old when I got my first pair of glasses. I remember looking out the kitchen window and marveling at how the tree outside which had always looked like one big green mush, was suddenly so intricate and detailed. The glasses changed it from a mush of green to a detailed pattern of delicate leaves intertwined with thick winding branches.
Playing a game, I would lift my glasses on to my forehead and then back on my eyes, watching the tree seemingly transform itself from one minute to the next. I. was in control of changing how the tree looked.
I haven’t worn glasses in years; contact lenses and then laser surgery has taken its place. But is that really true? Have I really not worn any glasses?
Don’t we all wear glasses, at least figuratively every time we view something from our own biased perspectives?
There are so many types of lenses that we can have in our glasses, lenses that make things larger, lenses that make things smaller and lenses that elongate shapes.
We also all wear very different figurative glasses through which we view everything that happens around us in our own unique ways.
There are so many different types of lenses. We can wear lenses of positivity and joy; we can wear lenses of gloom and doom. We can wear fundamentalists lenses; we wear can spiritual lenses.
As adults, we can choose which lens to use in each circumstance. Seeing things from different perspectives is always a reality and is so much more significant when dealing with personal and communal crises.
It is so much more important to pay attention to which lenses we are using when dealing with a crisis of the magnitude such as COVID -19. Since the crisis is so overwhelming, it is common to revert to using lenses that we feel most familiar with. However, it is important to know that we have the capacity to switch to any perspective we chose. We are not beholden to any particular viewpoint but rather can switch to whichever one we prefer.
I have reacted to COVID-19 using several different lenses over the last week and a half. It took me a few days until I was able to identify which glasses I had put on and then shift it to be more aligned to my true beliefs and be helpful and nourishing to myself during this time.
First, I felt scared. I was terrified. As a single mom living with two young children, I was so scared as to what would happen next. Would we be locked into the house for months? Would we run out of food? Would I be able to keep my job? Would my family that I am estranged from be ok? Are they being cautious or are they viewing things from a fundamentalist perspective (see later paragraph)? And when I get scared, I get busy. I create to-do lists long enough to rival the CVS receipts. I double-book my calendar and get out of breath just by looking at my list. When I am very scared, it is sometimes hard for me to identify my feelings, but seeing my to-do list reminds me of how afraid I am.
Once I realized how scared I was and how I was reacting, I started letting go and felt myself shift to a perspective of positivity and joy. Everything will be ok. It will pass without much damage and we will all be ok. Having that perspective felt good but was unsustainable. One phone call to a friend who lost her job and a look at my retirement investments quickly made it clear to me that now was not the time to put on my pink and positive glasses. Yes, it felt good to view everything so positively but was it real? Did I really want to ignore the real suffering, the deaths, and the sickness that this disease is causing?
Throughout this time, I kept on hearing a religious perspective on the disease. This perspective came to me through social media and from friends from various religious fundamentalist backgrounds. Many were talking about the Messiah (Moshiach) coming. It was the end of times they said, quoting scripture and bringing proof of His coming. We need to keep on praying, they said, gathering in large groups, putting their elders at risk. This is a punishment from God, they cried loudly, we need to repent and the disease will go away. We are different, we won’t get punished as long as we keep on praying and doing good deeds. These voices started to die out when news reports came of religious leaders who were diagnosed with the disease. Perhaps things were not so simple after all. Perhaps there was a different way of viewing this situation.
After experiencing this array of emotions and reactions, I was finally able to choose the glasses that feel best to me. I deliberately chose the spiritual glasses, the complex and comforting perspective from which I view my day to day life and from which I choose to view this global health crisis. I believe that all that happens is for the best. I may not understand why it is the best, but since I believe in a loving Divine, I know that if it is happening, it is purposeful and ultimately good. At the same time, I recognize the real pain that so many people on the Universe are suffering while expressing gratitude for the goodness I have in my life. I feel joy when I hear about the planet finally healing, fish swimming in Venice and pollution lifting over China. I feel pain when I hear about the mounting deaths in my city and all over the world and pray for all the ill and suffering. I take precautions with my health and the health of others by not going outdoors but make sure to take care of my own wellbeing and that of my family, by eating well exercising and getting adequate rest.
Every now and then, I forget to put on my spiritual glasses and I drift to overwhelming fear or to irrational positivity, but now that I have identified and recognize these lenses, I gently guide myself back to a place of choice and once again choose my spiritual lenses, the perspective that has provided me with tremendous sustenance and grounding during this time.
Which lenses are you using to view the current health crisis? Your personal life? How is it helping you or hurting you? How can you change your lenses to create a better reality for yourself?
