S2- Ep1: Healing During the Time of the Virus

https://anchor.fm/thv-tv/episodes/Healing-During-the-Time-of-the-Virus-2200-ebrrhu

My original song, “Live On. Live Strong.” is after the talk at 17:14. Also, my new book, Music Everywhere, will be available very soon.

Transcript:

This is Lance Howard and I want to welcome you back to The Healing Voice Podcast. I took an unexpected break for a while. I sensed a real shift in my own life and also felt that something was on the horizon that I needed to wait for. So, I was waiting, experiencing change and new insights, while also looking for the inspiration to launch the next series of podcasts. So, I want to title this one:

Healing During the Time of the Virus

Who we have become and how do we find opportunity to change, recreate, and rise in a new way.

In times of uncertainty, we have the potential to realize that our way of life is very fragile. Suddenly our life begins to unravel and it seems as if everything is going to fall apart. What we once assumed would comfortably continue on, suddenly takes an unexpected turn. As we experience social distancing, the spread of the virus, emotional and financial hardship, physical disease, and even death, we can become aware of the fact that time has the power to usher us toward events that we cannot foresee. The trinity of time, disease, and death reveal that we, ultimately, control nothing; our plans, our ideologies, nor our government can stop them.

We should know by now that nothing stays the same. Life shows us that we should create ways of living that are as sustainable as possible…. because disaster comes. We should be well acquainted with the fact that our comfort zone will be invaded on some sort of regular basis. Therefore, it is your responsibility to create the best version of yourself possible and that has nothing to do with a career, money, status, education, or relationships. You must be able to endure adversity in whatever form it comes, without breaking down or shying away because adversity is a large portion of being human. Emotional adversity is a daily experience in human existence. We must become better at handling the trials that come into our lives. This is the nature of maturing, becoming wiser, and being able to help ourselves and others.

The COVID-19 is a life-altering issue that is now overshadowing issues we are faced to deal with in our emotional daily lives. We get laid off. Loved ones leave us. Health issues arise and stress our pocketbooks. We get scared or angry about things we can’t control. Typically, we can find a way to run from those issues. We can numb out with tv, alcohol, drugs, hobbies, entertainment, and relationships. But Coronavirus is forcing us to deal with the reality of whatever variety of self-delusions we have concocted for ourselves. This, then, is the necessary environment for a paradigm shift in our personal and cultural way of thinking.

We look for peace, something refreshing, something to restore our sense of safety but all we find is short-lived distraction from the on-going worry. We look for a physician’s help, a buffer from and a cure for the virus, but all we see is increasing sickness and trouble. Stuck in the loop, we keep running. Stuck in the loop we keep searching for something to keep us avoiding what’s inside of us.

We, humans, tend to destroy what we don’t value and so it’s easy to see that money has become god-like to us because we destroy our planet, ourselves, and one another in exchange for it. But, in the end, we see that when our economy fails we will still be here doing what we must. Therefore, money needs to be given its proper value and demoted from its god-status. Obviously, we are greater than money but we have allowed it to become the foundational way we keep ourselves distracted all the time. We work for it, we purchase with it; we attach our happiness to what we can or cannot get with it. We’ve made it so that everything revolves around it. Without it, nothing that we deem important can get done. But, if we are able to realize that we are greater than money then we must be able to see the deeper values in what we are using it for. We are using it for security, happiness, love, and connection. These are all wonderful things but the way we have packaged them, redefined them, and sell them is not healthy for us. It is not difficult to see that true security, happiness, love, and connection have little to do with anything that is material because material-reality does not last. So the dollars we spend our lives stressing to obtain really leaves us in a loop of short-lived satisfaction and in the end, we are left empty-handed. Eventually, all the stuff we accumulate becomes someone else’s problem to stress over.

The Virus can help us realize that our money controls nothing in this life. It’s a world-wide delusion. A game that we play. A game that we started long ago. A game that we need to rethink.

Who are we? We do not know the answer and that is why we would dare trade our time, our health, our very souls, the most precious assets we have, for belief in our man-made economy as if it can be the foundational support for our lives.  What do we get in exchange for this trade? Chronic STRESS, which has been proven to lead to sickness of the mind and the body, giving disease and death an easy fight.

When the economy stops flowing all you’re left with are your thoughts, time and, hopefully, love if you didn’t squander it when things seemed to be in your control. The Virus shows just how fragile our systems and ways of thinking are. Without healthy humans to run them, they break, they fail, or shut down. Even your way of thinking is a system of your own design. We use our ability to think because we think we know what is best for ourselves. Negative emotion and lack of peace prove that our ways of thinking are not the best- we don’t really know what is best or else we’d know how to avoid sorrow.

So… where do your thoughts come from? They occur when you’re wide awake. They occur while you’re doing any activity. They occur as daydreams or dreaming in the middle of the night. Your thoughts are outside of and free from your physical interactions. You can be doing one thing while thinking another. This means your thoughts are outside of your physical self and this physical reality. That proves there is more to you than this systemic existence is making obvious. These ideas can lead to humbling disillusionment for the wise (they are strong and courageous); many of us are and many of us are becoming.

So, if you are stuck in a loop of fear, or anxiety, obviously you are not at peace and that means you are missing the Truth. We are addicted to these loops even when we have enough money. This only points to a deeper truth that money is not and will never be the answer. Truth brings peace of mind because it is beyond circumstances. I am not saying you can’t have money and peace. I’m saying you must have a greater awareness and self-caution about a strong illusion leading to dependence on money for satisfaction.

The only currency that truly supports our mental, physical, and spiritual well-being is Love. Money cannot stop time, disease, or death and in times of social distancing, we realize how much we’ve taken for granted- our own selves, our relationships, and our love. Money cannot buy self-love and self-connection. We are so out of touch with who we really are that when true connection shows up in our lives, it makes us uncomfortable and we even run from it. What we need, then, is true self-knowledge; not who we have thought ourselves to be all this time because, obviously, that hasn’t worked… in the sense that it doesn’t bring us the experience of inner peace. We need true identity that is free of social conditions, subcultures and is beyond the world’s systems.

Your Mind, capital “M”, your true Self, capital “S”, is greater than this. The illusion is that you are one with the Game and, yes, we all participate in it like we are watching an enthralling movie, or clinging to a roller coaster, or swimming in deep water. But outside of that experience is an existence that is firm and unshaken. It is what you are made of- an Intelligence that is creative and purposeful. An Awareness from a space-time-existence where no opposites or dissonance exist. You need to know that you are the product and expression of Pure Consciousness. You are wired to harness that power and consciously use it.

There is a way to know peace but it must happen in our inner worlds first. We must get to know it internally. We are all broken and emotionally imprisoned but, there is freedom. There is pain in this world, but we can know beauty, happiness, and song beyond, and even in the midst of, ashes, mourning, and heavy circumstances. We can experience strength during the worst of times. When disaster hits we can be creative, think outside the box, and do things better than they were done before. That begins by looking within our individual selves first because we each play a role in the struggle of human existence. The Virus is only one of many disasters that sheds light on who we have become and gives us the opportunity to change, recreate, and rise in a new way.

What paves the way for rebirth, new creativity, and sustainability is love. Love is goodwill and affection that is expressed because one has a full awareness of True Identity which is an issue of precious unity; the interdependent one-in-the-Same-ness by which we are all breathing and thinking; a unity in our diversity. That is the Source of True Identity, out of which comes transformation that can make our planet safe for everyone- a place in which we can be who We Are.

These are extreme times. The only way to protect yourself from negative thoughts, manipulative media, and self-doubt is to truly know Love- that you are It. There is no fear in that awareness. If you are stuck in a fear or anxiety-loop, begin by acknowledging that you, at that moment, are not in the energy or space of Love. You are in the energy of fear. Be honest…. But, then, find Love. Look within yourself only. If you look outside yourself, you will only repeat the same mistakes that have led you and all of us to this very moment in history because our economy, our way of exchanging anything we deem valuable, is based on looking outside of us for support and security when it can only come from within.

The Virus shows how socially irresponsible we have been. To allow our neighbors to live paycheck to paycheck. To allow our elderly or diseased population’s healthcare access to dwindle because it has become more affordable for the rich than anyone else. To allow our nation and world to become a place of such vast economic disparity rather than all of us lending an economical hand to one another. And all of this because we have allowed corporations and institutions to control our security through our pocketbooks.

Disease and sickness happen on this planet. The only thing we can ever control is what we choose to do with the time we have. We will treat ourselves better or worse and that begins with how you treat yourself. We will live from a place of True Identity or we will allow the Identity Crisis to continue on. Everything we do, every system we put in place only reveals what we truly know about and the image we hold of ourselves.

There is an energy behind our thinking and that can either give power to the Virus or take it away. At this point, we can take the Virus literally, metaphorically as a state of mind, or both. Remember, we humans tend to destroy what we don’t value. Our self-perception gives the Virus collective power to bully and kill us through fear and paranoia because on the inside we suffer from self-hate and little self-worth.

We need individual change for the better in order to create a healthier collective-mindset. That begins with knowing your true nature- that you are good, you are worthy, you are valuable, you are love. Nothing you’ve ever done nor anything that has ever happened to you change the nature of your True Identity. It just reveals how confused we’ve all been and that we are in this together. Self-discovery and self-love are what we need. That is what the Healing Voice podcast is about.