(This blog was updated since its original posting on 8/4/21)
Dictionary.com says:
a shot in the arm
A stimulus or booster, something vitalizing or encouraging, as in Getting a new concertmaster was a real shot in the arm for the orchestra. This colloquial expression alludes to a stimulant given by injection. [c. 1920]
Merriam Webster offers:
shot in the arm: something that arouses action or activity
- Getting laid off was the shot in the arm he needed to go back to school.
18 months into the pandemic and with the Delta variant, cases are rising again, hospitals are filling up again, schools are scrambling to figure out what to do again and small towns once clear of the pandemic are getting hit. It feels like an endless loop that we’re in. In spite of this, reactions on how to manage this virus seem to be fueled more by politics, distrust in leadership and personal situations versus science and accessibility. I’ve heard of some unvaccinated people who are now on the fence, some holding more firmly to their choice to not get vaccinated and some who are trying to buy proof of vaccination so they can travel. How much do we understand illness to be a state of the mind and how much a condition of the body? How does something that feels true and real to one become false and unreal to another?
Doesn’t it feel like a story that will never end? According to the CDC and many doctors and scientists, this could end if more people get vaccinated and wear a mask. Sounds too easy! Could that really be all it would take?
It appears that trust is a huge factor in this though – sounds like people across the U.S. aren’t sure who to trust. The possibility of all kinds of scenarios prevent some people from trusting that we have the solution. And unfortunately, there were also some valid reasons early on when the virus started and when the vaccines rolled out – for example, we didn’t hear that it had gone through the usual testing or liability measures – it wasn’t an approved vaccine by the FDA but strictly in the Emergency Use Authorization. Plus, we had a President who didn’t express full, public support of the vaccine yet he received one.
So here in America, it appears to be an issue of personal choice for a number of people. There are definitely many who are not recommended to take this vaccine or who strictly should not get vaccinated due to their health circumstances. For them, it could be very unsafe and compromising for the immune system. I have several clients who have cancer and are on chemo and for them, not an option. So got it, that makes complete sense. Some folks though, are living as though there is nothing to worry about if they get the virus, distrusting the system and trusting they just won’t be the one to get it or spread it. Which of course, is what we all say until we get the thing we’re doubting will happen. But it seems we like to play roulette and take our chances. Others recognize they can be a part of the solution by following guidelines that are based on a consensus of science and past knowledge of pandemics. And of course, there are scenarios of every kind because life is such that it simply can be so. We think it’s a personal issue but the virus really doesn’t care who we are – friend, family or foe, it just wants a living host.
Excerpted from the online article with npr.org:
How We’ll Know When The COVID-19 Crisis Is Over
July 10, 2021
Lynn Goldman, an epidemiologist and the dean of the school of public health at George Washington University, says the U.S. has certain things working for it — and some against it.
The good news is we’ve shown the ability to lower rates of transmission and deaths from the virus. And of course, Americans have widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines. The bad news is there’s resistance to the two main ways to prevent transmission — getting vaccinated and wearing a mask.
“And unfortunately, those two attributes tend to coincide within the same people and within the same population subgroups,” Goldman says. In other words, many of the same people who don’t want to get a vaccine also don’t want to wear a mask.
In January, I was pretty convinced that I would not be one of the ones racing to get the vaccine. I never get the flu shot and typically feel that vaccines aren’t necessary. I did get the required vaccines when I traveled to India in 2007, it just made sense somehow and I didn’t question it. But I didn’t take malaria pills since that was optional. I trusted my immune system and preferred not to put daily pharmaceuticals into my system. I have family members who have relied on medications for the stability of their mental health and understand there is a place and maybe a time for these. They are a medical advancement that have saved countless lives and advanced an industry that many are grateful exist. I have many more thoughts about that industry and in some part why I was against running to get the COVID vaccine, but I also knew to be open and curious versus rigid and stubborn.
For myself, I have been thankful to focus more on a plant-based diet to keep my immune system strong, and not to even take Advil or any other medicines. But in February of last year, once I understood the reality of this pandemic and how this vaccine worked thanks to clients who worked on the vaccine, I came to understand that getting the vaccine was a matter of moving through this pandemic safely not so much for myself, but for my community and even my city and country. Wow, kind of sounds patriotic but all I can say is that like when I took the vaccines for my India trip, it made sense.
At one point I was resistant, and then the next it was the only option that I felt would help us work together to shift us out of this suspended animation. I contemplated the fact that this was an experiment on many levels, that I was a guinea pig. But at the same time, I recognized that this whole thing of being in this body is an experiment, a journey of this soul to navigate through life and learn whatever lesson is here for this lifetime. It was like, I knew I had to let go of some attachments that I’d been carrying and this is part of spiritual path of non-attachment. I trust there is something larger at work here, and that I could surrender to this moment and join this wave of what we believe to be what will help us. Or, I could resist and feel the stress of being contrary and believing my own moral code versus science. And how odd, because so much of my life efforts have in fact been against the grain. I grew up knowing I was gay at a young age, and it didn’t feel like the world wasn’t made for me. I was a “starving” artist for many years. I lead a plant-based life. I believe technology is on one hand good, but on the other the exact source that is taking us further away from accessing our inner truth.
And then, I’m reminded about how addiction works – it’s not the object of the addiction that is the problem. It’s the relationship to it. The goal of recovery work is to right the relationship to ourself and release the subject or object from the equation. We can forever blame the thing that we are addicted to, try and squash it or harm ourselves with it in order to feel. We can hide behind it and let it be the excuse for not doing the work that will bring harmony to our soul. It’s the understanding of how it serves us and what is behind the compulsive use that will bring healing and bring peace. What if I surrender to the unknown here, like I’ve learned to do in my meditation practice and trust there is a larger picture for me to see? What if there are times when there is good reason to make certain individual choices for my own impact on this planet, and there are other times when my choice impacts others to a greater extent?
For those that can’t get vaccinated for immune compromised reasons, I can take the vaccine so that more are vaccinated, helping us reach herd immunity. We don’t need 100% of people to be vaccinated to help move out of this pandemic. We need a high majority and I felt I could be one of them for the sake of those who cannot be vaccinated.
In this same way that we are struggling to move through a pandemic, we are struggling to have peace on this planet. All the ideas and ways to imagine things being interpreted/misinterpreted are sure to create a disconnect. So if we can’t make it through a pandemic with an agreement of how to move forward, it seems like a mountain that we won’t be able to climb when I imagine a peaceful Earth. Many won’t budge from their mountain tops and want to hold tight to habitual ways. Well, that’s how it feels today. Tomorrow is a new day. We can each wake up and have a perspective shift, a revelation, a turning point, a wake up call…a shot in the arm which in many ways is a shot in the dark! That’s also very much a part of our human experience and so, I lean into that.
There are infinite ways we can get lost and found in this world, and the symbol of infinity could be one way to show that we are cycling through countless experiences that are immeasurable. Where does it truly begin and where does it truly end or are we forever in the space of what Joe Goode of Joe Goode Performance Group once called, “the messy middle.”
May we all pause, consider what we can do to help get through this pandemic. I know on one hand it seems simple, especially here in SF because so many of us have been vaccinated and cases aren’t nearly as bad as other areas of the world. But the virus spreads or diminishes by one person’s choice to make a collective impact. If I were to leave this world today, do I want to believe that I did something to help others or that I focused on my self interests? When emotions become louder than reason, Yoga and Qigong are tools that calm and center the mind and body. That’s what’s been helping me and I hope it has been or can be of support for you. Whatever we do, there will be a time when we will be able to look back and know we made it through something wildly unimaginable. And one way or another, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, we did it together.
Let’s stay connected,
Marc
