Can you believe it is June?
Did someone press a “pause” button on time? I certainly feel like time has warped, did you feel time was strange?
I know that this period has been beyond strange, and a bit of a rollercoaster ride for most of us. There are so many layers of perspectives from which to view the last few months that you need the capacity of super zoom camera lens to switch between these layers.

At this stage I must issue a warning- this blog does not come with the normal full of positivity vibes-for in my heart I feel we are at a critical point in the evolution of our world, so it would be negligent of me not to offer my tuppence-worth!

Let’s zoom in and take a glimpse at the personal level for those who are healthy. The pause in time offered a golden opportunity to stop, look, listen and re-evaluate what is important to us. The final assessment for most of us was: Health, Family, Food, Shelter, Pets, What’s App/Tick Tock (insert your choice of virtual communication here), Books, Netflix & maybe wine or in my case -cases of Prosecco!!! The glorious weather certainly helped, I’m not sure lockdown would have been as much fun in November. How’s the Covid Colour looking? Does it compensate for the state of your hair????? It was a very grounding experience which is always a good thing as modern life tends to have us running around believing that Busy=productive, when in reality Busy=destructive, particularly in terms of our stress levels and wellbeing.

There is always a negative to any picture though and for others, the personal level was a devastating experience, and I swayed between feeling extremely grateful to be enjoying a special, healthy and happy time with my family and feeling enormous sadness and empathy at what is going on, especially for our older members of society. If I’m to be honest many times I felt surges of anger at the mis-treatment and lack of respect for the people in our country who above all of us, have earned the right to our deepest respect.
The fear that was bestowed on our elderly in my opinion was devastating and totally unwarranted. This generation have the most wisdom, common sense and life experience of all of us and they did not need to be scared to death, all they needed was fair, neutral information on how to keep themselves safe, and they would have complied.

Many of our elders already suffer terribly with loneliness and if we’d asked them last year what was the worst condition they lived with, and what was their biggest fear-I’ll bet the answer would have been loneliness, not fear of death!
I literally could cry now, as I write this, thinking of the pain that the lockdown rules has inflicted on our precious elderly. I cannot even bear to consider what it was like for those that were dying alone. A society can always be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable, and for this phase in our history I hang my head in shame.

I ask myself- why did we not say something, stand up for them and protect them in a way that wasn’t going to cost more than the cure itself? When 2000 Irish people can take to the streets for an absolute injustice that occurred in the USA, I ask myself, where were we when we allowed the injustices of lockdown be bestowed upon our elders? I won’t even start on what happened to our sick elderly, or you may tune out!

Sorry to rant-but I had to get it out! The only redeeming outcome that I truly hope will come from this, is that when we reflect on lockdown and it’s effects on the elderly, that we will make a resolution NEVER to do let this happen again.

As I zoom further out and take a look from a community perspective, this was an opportunity for us to realise how vital community and community services are for all of our survival. Globalisation has its benefits but when push comes to shove, it has major flaws, this system of instant ordering that is totally dependent on so many parts to be functioning, can collapse just by one part breaking down- apparently New York has a maximum of a 3 hour supply of food, should transport shut down for instance. I presume we are slightly better off logistically here in Ireland, however that may be a false sense of security that I would not like to test!

The more self-sufficient we are at a local level the better it is for all of us. The lockdown has highlighted this and I believe that if we build on this, and focus on buying local, growing local, supporting our service providers that are local, we can meet most of our needs in a more sustainable way. So please be mindful of this as local business try to rebuild the devastation that lockdown will have caused, support our own, our survival may depend on it one day!

On the plus side I’ve seen adults encouraging our children to learn skills that contributed to our communities, and lead by example by supporting neighbours. And on that note-there is a slight sniff of a very destructive element creeping in that we need to be vigilant not to encourage- that of snitching on our neighbour. This is extremely divisive, won’t help anyone or any situation, and we will be far better served individually and collectively if we support each other. So I implore you, stamp this snitching mentality out should you come upon it, and instead encourage others to be supportive.

It seems to me that we have flipped our thinking to ways that are very limiting, as if we are looking through this zoom lens backwards.

As I take snap shots with my camera this is what I see;

1. We choose to focus on sickness instead of health
2. We choose fear instead of Empathy and Kindness
3. We choose safety over living freely
4. We prioritise physical health, over the importance of Mental health
5. We choose limited living over earning a living
6. We choose silence instead of freedom of speech
7. We choose law over morality
8. We choose that religion is non-essential
9. We choose distance instead of connection
10. We choose to release prisoners and house-arrested everyone else
11. We choose -oh wait- WE DIDN’T CHOOSE- we were told!

This is not a pretty picture that I see- but if we wake up and become brave enough to have the conversations, speak the truth of what our hearts are screaming at us, we can choose to reverse these scenarios. So let’s take a look at what flipping this snap shot would look like-
1. We choose to focus on wellness, e.g.-share valuable information about how to boost our immunity so that we don’t get sick in the first place

2. We choose to live from the expansive perspective of empathy & kindness (which also boosts the immune system!)

3. We choose to get over our fear of death so that we can live-to live is to risk-each morning I risk falling down the stairs and breaking my neck-but the risk is worth it!

4. We choose holistic health, and realise that our QUALITY of life is more dependant on our mental wellbeing than our physical health-I have known many physically seriously ill people who were incredibly happy and shone their light despite their physical limitations and I know even more mentally ill people who would rather be dead!

5. While I agree that health is more important than money-I note that poverty is one of the leading causes of illness-destroying our businesses especially our most vulnerable small businesses will result in far more sickness that any virus-not to mention where will we get our essential services if the global network has a glitch?

6. If I hadn’t used my own critical thinking and research abilities, I would only have one perspective of this issue-it seems that we are not allowed to have any opinion other than the one bestowed upon us. This is a very dangerous situation akin to Germany in the 40’s. Many people are afraid to speak their truth because they are afraid of what others may think of them. To this I say: Many brave warriors over the centuries put their lives on the line to buy us freedom, today to be a brave warrior all we risk is other people’s opinion of us. Please speak your truth, the truth that comes from the infinite wisdom within you, and respect the truth of others who may have a different view.

7. Law v morality- The law is no substitute for morality-we have infinite examples of this throughout history-I defer to my previous point-it was legal in Germany in the 40’s to snitch and identify Jews in your community. A clear case of choosing law over what was morally right. It may have been the law not to sit with a loved one as they died during lockdown that does not make it morally right. Did we really choose this? Again our picture is inverted.

8. We decided that religious worship was non-essential???? How many of our not so distant ancestors gave up their lives so we could have the right to go to church-I shudder to think how they are turning in their graves! Not to mention the fact that “social distancing” isn’t exactly hard to achieve in our empty Cathedrals! Again- the main losers in this-our older generation who have a strong connection and find solace in their church, at THE most fearful isolated and lonely time of their lives, we shut them down. What kind of society do we have that off-licences are considered essential and churches are not! (May I say personally though-I was glad of the Prosecco availability!!)

9. From over 20 years of passionately working to promote health, I KNOW from professional experience, what countless scientific studies have irrevocably proven, that Human beings need connection and touch-I’m resisting taking you down that rabbit hole-so just trust me when I say categorically that human touch enhances the immune system and is essential to mental and emotional well-being. Any yet, there has never before been any study to prove that social distancing of 2 meters is of any benefit-I challenge you to find it! We need connection, and remember- that we ALWAYS had the free will choice to isolate and take whatever measures we needed to, to avoid picking up any virus or illness. We do not need to disconnect everyone, instead we can educate the vulnerable to protect themselves and we simply need to assure them that we will respect their choice.

10. We choose to release prisoners and house-arrest everyone else-someone please explain?????

We also seem to be suffering from a serious case of amnesia- the lockdown was introduced to “flatten the curve”- to DELAY the spread-so that our hospitals wouldn’t become overwhelmed-(by the way Neill Ferguson from Imperial College London who came up the projections that lockdown was based on- has been fired and his work discredited.) Why have we still got lockdown?

Having firstly lived through this experience, secondly having engaged my critical thinking, thirdly having done my own research to enhance my existing knowledge of health care, I must ask the question- Is there a hidden agenda here?

Whew-that got a lot out of my system and if you suffered until the end, you deserve a prize!
I appreciate your ability to be open-minded enough to listen, and if I pushed any buttons for you, please be assured that is not my intention.
My passion for sharing Health & Wellbeing is always my driving force, and unfortunately I can’t turn it off, and I will do my best as long as there is breath in me to contribute in my own small way to creating a better world for all of us. When I depart this world, I don’t mind if I’m exhausted so long as I’m satisfied that I did my best.

I truly feel that we can turn this ship around from where it is heading, we ABSOLUTELY can and indeed we have the right to invoke our Human Right to free will and choice to create whatever world we wish to leave behind us.
We will not achieve this unless we eliminate FEAR- FEAR is THE ENEMY-in all of its guises-and it is a sneaky brat! We must work diligently to get those fearful thoughts under control-we were not born with those fears, the only fears we are born with are loud noises and falling-every other fear you have, was cursed upon you by many sources.

It is VITAL that we turn this fear off if we are to flip the pictures I see through my zoom lens, and we need to act swiftly before the current pictures become our “new normal”!

We don’t have to get up on our soap boxes (although currently mine is creaking from standing on it too long today!) we simply have to declare to ourselves our own divine right of sovereignty. I do this daily by simply saying “I am a sovereign human being and the freedom to choose my own thoughts is my birth-right, today I invoke that power, and nothing else on this earth supersedes this sovereignty”

If even one of you have suffered my ramblings this long-
I offer my services to you, your loved ones, your community, our country, if you would like help on conquering the biggest enemy of Humankind-fear.
PS- A really magically world is just in front of us, I can feel it, but we must step into the photograph and take the shot.
Sending you and your loved ones tons of love & light
Anna