While it is obvious a full-on conflict against this new pathogen has erupted, forcing us to find a treatment and hopefully eventually develop a vaccine, a more subtle internal conflict rages just under the surface. This subtle realm is where I would like to focus.
In the face of the Covid-19 terrifying outbreak, our usual lifestyle had to adapt to a new, unsettling, sudden and unprecedented form. Our usual inner world is threatened by new internal disturbances (which Mindell identifies using the term X energy). That is a much trickier issue, because its root cause is not an external “Other”, not some pathogen separate from ourselves, and we its victims.
This subtle internal conflict pits our everyday carefree lifestyle (u energy) against a new internal aggressor (X energy) with all its various uncomfortable components. We are essentially there are war with ourselves.
Obviously, each one of us faces a different X energy, waging a private war. But what the current crisis broadly brings about for most of us revolves around: self-isolation, loneliness, loss of sense of community, loss of physical contact, germaphobia, boredom, helplessness, anxiety and sometimes depression.
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