In this article Tarisha, one of Tantralife’s teachers, tells us her adventure with Covid-19.
HOW I DEFEATED COVID
Today is a special day for me, after a month literally spent in hell, I can breathe a sigh of relief, figuratively and literally.
Today, in fact, I received the best news in a month now: my molecular swab for research of Sars-CoV 2 (responsible for the Covid 19 disease), finally tested negative!
I’ll spare you the long description of the symptoms (I’ve had them all) and I don’t even want to bore you with complaints about various inefficiencies in the health system.
What I would like to share, together with my joy, are a series of discoveries that I have made in this long month in which I had a lot of time to meditate and reflect.
I hope my findings can be of help to someone.
WHAT DOESN’T PROTECT YOU FROM COVID
– BEING TANTRIKAS, meditators, keeping vibrations high, etc… do not constitute a space shield that protects you from infections in the body. I want to say it, someone will find it obvious, but I assure you that social media are full of statements of this type, so “if you vibrate high you won’t get sick”, statements that contain an implicit judgment and a sense of superiority towards those who do not meditate.
– TAKING TONS OF VITAMIN C and other supplements, eat organic food, alkalize the body, fast, etc … All practices that I have been following since long ago, with excellent results on my general state of health and probably this healthy lifestyle (as well as the regular practice of meditation) helped me to have a strong enough immune system to beat the disease, but even that wasn’t enough to protect me from a rather devastating infection.
– WEARING A FACE MASK, wash your hands often, social distancing. Despite having scrupulously followed these rules, in fact, I got infected anyway. Obviously, a good dose of luck is needed, because the virus is so aggressive that it is enough to touch an “infected” potato in the supermarket and then inadvertently touch your face and… the tiny attacker penetrates!
WHAT HELPS YOU IF YOU GET SICK
– BEING A TANTRIKA… I know, I just said this doesn’t protect you BUT…. Being a “tantrika” in particular was very useful to me at the onset of my illness. I mean that the deep connection with my body and the ability to listen to its signals made me immediately realize that something strange was happening, I felt right away that the body was struggling with something new and with which it had never got in touch before. The ability to be totally present to incoming messages from the physical body gave me signals that I could not ignore, so I immediately requested a swab and within a few hours I put myself at rest and went into self-isolation, thus avoiding to become a super-diffuser of the disease.
– MEDITATING REGULARLY … also of this I said above that it does not protect you … but surely maintaining regularity in my daily meditation practices helped me to stay centered and I must admit that without meditation during the last month it would have been very hard for me to accept the fear of not making it, the sadness and the sense of extreme vulnerability that comes over you when you know you have a potentially deadly virus for which there is no cure.
– ZOOM !!! This much loved-hated technological means … I have blessed it so many times in this month. In particular, being part of a community of meditators (Tantralife in my case) and being able to meet regularly, even with a fever, even from the bed, but knowing that I was connected to such a powerful energy circle of people who meditate and go deep, it was invaluable support. I attended the Tantralife online courses while being in the backstage, I didn’t have the strength to conduct or to give technical support … so I had the rare opportunity to be present in the online courses “as a participant”. I was touched by the depth of the sharings and every experience shared by others was reflected in mine, making me feel that I was not alone, that I belong to a great and beautiful humanity of which the participants in the course were such loving exponents and open to the mystery. I felt very lucky to be a part of all of this.
– STAY AWAY FROM SOCIALS. When you have a lot of free time and can’t do much outside the bed or the sofa, the temptation to be on social media is very strong. I have to say though that I got out of the tunnel very early because the posts and comments I read were so often full of hate, fear, aggression … after a couple of days, I couldn’t believe that so many of my social contacts had nothing else to express than anger and could not wait to throw it at others. Obviously, everyone uses social media as they like, but in this period, I was so close to the essentiality of things, that all that trivial chatter seemed so useless and far from the truth! Instead, I felt that it did me good to be in online groups with my meditation companions, where an hour spent with them enriched me so much and recharged me, that was a real injection of healing!
– PRACTICE TANTRA (WHITE, RED, OR PINK). Eh eh eh … you may have wondered, I know! What does a Tantra teacher do with Covid? Will she be doing Tantra (or sex) all day? So, here I reveal something VERY INTIMATE … I got sick together with my beloved. This was good because we helped and supported each other so much this month. Staying in bed with a partner without time limits is something difficult to practice even for a tantrika (we have bills to pay too!) So, of course, we took advantage of the opportunity. What happened to me (and that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to happen to all tantrikas) is that we moved on to a “pink” Tantra, made of infinite cuddles, breaths in unison, extended time … and often also “white” Tantra, meditating together and getting lost in a suspended space. Even out of bed, having necessarily to reduce and slow down the most banal daily activities, it was very nice to introduce this meditative quality in every gesture, even the simplest one like brushing your teeth or making a coffee. In short, we took the opportunity to experience an intense month of Brahmacharya, which deeply deepened our meditation. And I think that if lived like this, the experience of white Tantra can be very useful in this period of physical distancing also for those who don’t have a partner (perhaps without Covid it is even better!)
– KEEPING A SENSE OF HUMOR was essential to remind me that even in the most difficult situations, staying light helps a lot! Illness and death are part of life and when they become more tangible, paradoxically, they lose that aura of heaviness. In the here-and-now of the situation that you are experiencing the fear vanishes, at least for me it was like this.
And then, looking carefully, every day there were so many comic situations to live! For example, I discovered that having Covid gives you an advantage that nobody reveals: the sense of smell is so blocked that you can endlessly chop onions without crying!
