One of the most confusing and challenging aspects in this pandemic has been the level of personal choices that we have all had to make and the wide spectrum of perspective and experience around the gravity and level of risk and impact that actually exists.
I want to honor that it is exhausting to make this level of decision daily, and even hourly or minute by minute. I want to honor that access to resources prior to and during the pandemic has been extremely variable for everyone, and even low to some. Hard choices in the name of survival have been required. No one was able to escape that.
This is the energy of love. I don’t know what causes severe illness or Long Covid, but I am very willing to help those I interact with never experience that. I will be sad and disappointed if it turns out I have contracted covid, but I know that I tried my best and that I have taken a lot of precaution.
In this moment, as I consider the course of action I have taken since I learned of this potential exposure, I really feel it in my body that I don’t just wear my mask for myself. I wear it for you. I wear it for your loved ones. I wish to do no harm. I wish to help you in your healing journey.
I have a sensitive system. It’s part of what helps me to show up for my clients and work on subtle and complex issues. Though technically I am not required to take the Hippocratic oath, my father was a Doctor, and also, I want to ‘first do no harm’. There is no reason for me to put anyone’s life at risk to provide this service.
When the pandemic first began, I pivoted to strictly virtual (AKA remote) reiki, donation-based, done in my home. I kept to this for about the first year or year and a half. I still offer this service to folks when they are ill.
As I write this blog, I have found out that I was in a room with someone who tested positive for covid. I was wearing a mask and socially distanced, but we were in that room together for over an hour. Today I have been making phone calls and texts to rearrange my commitments so that I can remain at home for the next 5-10 days. I have shifted any clients in the coming weekend to the weekend after so that I can be sure I won’t expose them. There is privilege in my capacity to do it, and yes, it may be far more precaution than I need to take.