Why I'm not Scared of the Coronavirus Anymore

I was scared of the Coronavirus. I’m not anymore. Here’s Why.

When I first heard about the Coronavirus, I’ll admit I was afraid.

I’ve got a young family and the stories being told of the virus were horrible! The more I indulged in the media; the more frightened I became. The more frightened I became, the easier it was to find more information to fuel my fear.

We prepared. We made sure we had food at home. We bought… toilet paper — just like most of you.

If you’re in the same boat as I was (scared)– I understand where you’re coming from and how you got there. Now, let’s navigate that boat through the storm to calmer waters and greater peace of mind.

It’s like smoking in a lightning storm.

480,000 Americans die every year from smoking cigarettes.

27 Americans die every year from being struck by lightning.

Living life in fear of the Coronavirus is like smoking a cigarette to calm your nerves during a lightning storm.

Your fear of the Coronavirus isn’t healthy and it’s certainly not helping you avoid succumbing to the virus. In fact, the more emotional stress you put yourself under right now the worse your odds are in becoming infected. By allowing fear to consume you; you put yourself at a higher risk.

What you need to hear right now is that your body is as prepared as it can be to fight this virus. Your immune system’s ability to defend your body from the virus is based off the work you’ve put in to your health over the past several years. If your health isn’t the greatest right now, should you be scared? No! Should you be concerned and take precautions? Yes! 

If you feel you’re in good health — continue to do the little things to stay healthy. Keep up your exercise. Eat clean. Sleep. Think happy thoughts.

If you are concerned that your health isn’t in the best condition right now — there’s no better time to start improving. One of the biggest things I would encourage you to do is begin between your ears. Eliminate the unnecessary worry and anxiety — once you do, you’ll gain clarity and be able to embrace the obstacle at hand.

Now, let’s talk about true fear.

The purpose of fear. 

True fear is a naturally programmed emotional response to danger. It activates an entire branch of your nervous system to help heighten your body’s ability to escape danger. True fear allows you to punch a shark in the nose when it clamps it’s jaws around your leg so you can escape.

One of the biggest problems we’ve created is generating false fear around the Coronavirus. False fear leads to anxiety, worry, and panic. Your body operates completely differently when it’s under true fear compared to false fear.

True fear heightens your body’s ability to stave off danger. False fear hinders your body’s immune system.

Getting riled up about how someone else is handling themselves during this pandemic is NOT true fear. It’s worry.

Not leaving your house under any circumstances for any reason is NOT true fear. It’s panic.

Thinking that you’re at a higher-risk than you objectively are to be infected is NOT true fear. It’s anxiety.

It’s my opinion that the #1 thing you can do right now is to get over your false fear and dig deeper to identify why you feel that way.

Why do you feel the way you feel?

Emotions are natural. In fact, without them we humans wouldn’t be much fun.

Which emotion has been triggered in you during this pandemic? Anxiety? Worry? Confusion? Anger?

The question you need to be asking is “why do I feel this way?” Dig deep here.

I learned about a tremendous exercise that mental health professionals use to help get to the bottom of emotion and identify the root cause of the feeling. It’s simple — ask yourself “why?” Then ask it again. And again. And again. Repeat this seven (7) times!

If you do this you’re going to be left with the real reason why you feel the way you do. Many times the presenting problem is only a small part of the real issue that needs to be addressed. 

Do you want stay-in-place orders to remain longer for your health? Or maybe because you like spending more time with your family? Or perhaps you don’t really want to go back to work? Whatever your reason is — it’s perfectly fine that you feel that way. Just embrace it. Then you can look at the bigger picture and make the changes you need to make.

Control Your Mind

Let’s start here — It’s an awful, brutal fact of life that people die. It’s horrible that people have died from COVID-19. We should never marginalize the life of anyone or how it came to an end and that’s not my intent.

But we have to take an objective look at the numbers: 53,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 (at the time of publishing). To my knowledge, most (if not all) struggled with other health conditions: diabetes, respiratory problems, obesity, etc.

Healthy people aren’t dying from this virus. The mortality rate of this virus is low. You don’t need to be scared. Allowing your mind to run wild with fear, indulging in false media claims, and operating out of emotion is going to greatly decrease your quality of life.

Now, you have to be authentic to yourself and take the precautions you feel are appropriate. It would be disingenuous for you to go against what you feel is appropriate.

All I ask is that whatever actions and decisions you make; don’t make them out of fear. 

In the absence of clear truth, which I believe applies to our situation with this virus, emotion takes over. When emotions are high, logic is low.

You cannot control the action but you can ALWAYS control the reaction.