Love, Healing and the Coronavirus Guided Imagery Meditation & Talk. Watch On-Demand. [Episode 4]

The show you're about to hear is a recording from Dr. Miller's webinar series titled Life Meditations. He began this series in response to the pandemic, and his goal has been to provide wisdom, practical tools, and comfort to people during these stressful times. Watch the entire series at drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations.

Well, hello, good afternoon. Uh, this is Emmett Miller, and today the title that I gave to our presentation is Love and Healing and the Coronavirus. As you might have guessed, I was sort of not sure what I wanted to put on there, but since everything that I'm doing, even if I don't admit it, it really has to do with love, it really has to do with healing. And because the coronavirus is something that we're all dealing with, I mean, it's amazing. I listen to The Economist magazine, I listen to the audio version of an audio podcast each week. So the 7 to 8 hours of this magazine that's being read, which I find interesting, it's being read by people with the English accent, which I always find amusing. But now, you know, 9/10 of the stories all have to do with this coronavirus. It's coronavirus, coronavirus, all day long, and then everybody's weaving it into everything that they're doing. They weave it into their conspiracy theories, they've woven it into, into politics. It's, you know, it's like arguing with your, your Porsche mechanic as to what the meaning of a particular sound is that's coming from the engine. Nobody wants to listen to the doctors. Nobody trusts anyone anymore. You know, our level of trust is, is, is fallen down so far that— so whatever the issues are, they, they sort of are— they cluster around the notion of the coronavirus and decisions that we need to make, decisions that have to do with, you know, actually millions of lives. We're really dealing with, really dealing with millions of lives here. So It's a pity that we've let it get to the place that it has. So what I'm saying wraps around the coronavirus, but I certainly would like to go deeper since I really feel that the issues, the very existence of this problem right now, is simply a symptom of a much deeper a problem that's going on for us in our culture, in our society, in our global world. If we realize that we're all here living on planet Earth or spaceship Earth, and that what we share, what we have in common, the values that we have in common are so much more important than the little things that differentiate us. If we could really get that that was true, Um, some of you, uh, I guess, have, uh, read my book from 2009, which is called Our Culture on the Couch, where I did a psychological examination of the culture of the United States and of the planet in general. And the subtitle of it was Seven Steps to Global Healing. Point that I was making is that the kind of logic that we were slipping into was the logic of duality, and everything was looked at in a binary way. Are you black or white? Are you Republican? Are you Democrat? Are you American? Are you Chinese? Are you pro-life or pro— or against life? Or are you pro-abortion or against abortion? Are you pro-guns or— and there's no community. And so I could see the emergence of a problem as I described it. We were reaching, rapidly reaching an abyss. And there are so many areas of our, of our global situation that really require us to be in touch with each other and to communicate with each other. And if we fail to do that, something was going to collapse. Could be global warming, it could be air pollution, could be ocean pollution, could be nuclear pollution, could be nuclear war. There's all of these different tragedies, you know, and it's not like, okay, somebody kills their neighbor or there's a fight between, you know, two small nation-states, but we're talking on the global level. And the level of disaster is so enormous, from the smallest little problems, like if China could say, "Wait a minute, we've got this problem here. We don't know what's— where it all comes from, but here's the virus, and let's all get together and talk about what we need to do to prevent it from becoming epidemic and prevent it from becoming pandemic, which means it's not like an epidemic that we can control, control. It's like everywhere. Now we've got to shut everything down and sort of creep out. And so now we're having an argument is about, uh, should we wear our masks or not? Should we keep our distance or not? Well, if we keep our distance and everybody obeys, a short period of time, new cases go down to zero, and then we can begin to work ourselves back. But if only two-thirds or three-fourths of the people do that, it doesn't help. And so we're not able to ever control it, and so it's never going to be safe to go out. Things like that. It's just we can't get together. In other nations, it's been very different. Certain other nations where the government says, okay, everybody shut down, and everybody shut down because everybody believes in it, and they believe in their leaders. And we squandered all of that. So here we are dealing with the symptoms. And it's true, when you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to focus on cleaning the swamp. But I think we need to be able to do both. And last time, there were quite a number of questions that had come up, and I decided instead of doing a really going into a specific topic this time, I would try to look at what questions you might have and to at least address them. I don't know if I can answer them all, but I can at least try to address them. A couple of the things from the past that people mention, let me just say a little bit about that. And a little bit, there were a number of questions that had to do with this feeling of a loss of security, loss of a sense of purpose. And I would say what's happened to us in the West is life has been so easy and so luxurious that we've come to expect that this is how life was. But life hasn't always been this way. And for the vast, vast majority of human beings, it's been nasty and brutish and short. In 1900, I think the average death for males was 42, 43 years or something like that. It's remarkable. Some people live longer, but that's what the average was. Now our average is way up in the 70s someplace. So we've got all of these extra years, Sometimes we don't recognize what a gift that is. We talked a session or two ago about gratitude, the importance of recognizing, recognizing where there's an opportunity. I am so grateful that whoever has figured out how to get us to live longer, I'm so glad they did what they did. I have a few ideas, and I really appreciate the physicians, the the scientists, the researchers, and especially the people who design septic systems, because that's probably been one of the most— one of the major things that's allowed us to live is that we know how to deal with our waste products, at least some of our waste products. So we become spoiled, and in our culture, if we start having a bad feeling in any way, a pain in the body or an emotional pain or a mental pain or whatever it might be, and we look for the cure to that pain. We want to get rid of that pain. Why don't we take a pill and, uh, symptomatic therapy, or we do something to make it go away, or we go to Club Med or whatever it might be. But very often the pains that we have are just the symptoms of something that's off that's at a deeper level. The majority of all the physical diseases that we see have stress as a major component, and that stress being our failure to, shall we say, accept the present moment with serenity, to fully accept it. No matter what's happened, it's happened. So if we can learn to accept what's there. And then out of that acceptance to see what are the things that we can change, and then focus our mind on that. But these are not the kinds of things that, that we've been trained to do in our culture. And so now suddenly we've lost our culture, we can't hang out with people the way we usually do, we can't earn money the way we usually do, so many things have been cut off And, but you know, most of those things are really luxuries in a certain way, or we can look at it in that way and say we won't really need those things. But our thoughts are constantly on what we don't have. On the other hand, if we can come into the present moment and learn how to accept where we are, and that's why —of course, I suggest that we look at deep relaxation, that we look at meditation. You know, most of us know that we should settle down and relax more, that we should be doing meditation, but, you know, we never have time because that's the downside of our culture. We're so bombarded with things to do and we're constantly under demand and we think that that's normal. When that falls away, then we feel— this feels abnormal, but you know, this is more of a normal kind of, kind of being where you actually have time. And we actually have time to begin to take care of ourselves. And take a look at where you're spending your time doing. So you're wasting time watching television, wasting time watching the news. How many hours today I'm hearing 3 and 4 and 5 hours a day. It's just another kind of addiction. There's no reason for most of us, if you're in the business like I am, at least that's my excuse for spending more than an hour paying attention to what the developments are involving this particular condition. But for most of us, we can get it all in a half hour. And we don't need to spend that time doing that. We spend time worrying about what we don't have, we keep spending time worrying about about the future, and so forth. What if we carved off some of that time and made it quiet time, and being able to sit down and relax into this moment, you know, into this moment. Someone asked my buddy Ram Dass, what would he do if he was out hiking at someplace in the desert and suddenly he was bitten by a poisonous snake, and he had 5 minutes to live and no possible way to get to any medical care. What would he do? And he said, I would sit down and I would meditate upon the snake and thank the snake for sending me on to my next incarnation. And sometimes I think when I'm flying in a plane, I know when I'm in a plane, I have a higher chance of dying within the next 3 hours than if I was sitting at home in my living room. Okay, I've got to look at that. Well, suppose the pilot says, okay, we're going to crash into a mountain in 2 minutes, you know, buckle your seat belts and pray. Well, what would I do? Most people would be yelling and screaming, oh no, it can't be happening, yeah, yeah, yeah. Other people calling, maybe I would call, but you can't really call from a plane most of the time. I decided I would want to just sit and be really quiet and just think about all of the beautiful things I have had an opportunity to experience in my life. Wow. And I think about that, and I think about it often. So if it ever happens, that's what I hope. That's what I hope to be able— I hope to be able to do. So what I'm saying is that you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. It's like nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Nobody expects coronavirus pandemic. Well, some of us do, but we don't bother listening to them because we're too busy, you know, you know, worrying about bathrooms and where transsexual people should urinate. Things like that is what we're worried about instead of some of those other things. So how fortunate we are to have this particular moment. And so let's think, let's think about mindfulness for a moment. Choose something to look at in the distance or close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath in and let it out. Be aware of your breathing as you take another deep breath in and hold it. Hold it and don't let yourself breathe out. Hold it until it feels like you can't hold it. Any further, and then let it go and notice how you experience the next breath in. Oh, that feels so wonderful-bolide. So imagine you can experience each new breath the same way. Let the air do the breathing for you. Then with the breathing in, think to yourself I'm breathing in. With breathing out, think to yourself, I'm breathing out. And then there's a little pause before the next breath comes in. Just think, this is the pause. Now I'm breathing in, and now I'm breathing out. And you'll notice that there's a movement of your chest and your belly. Feel that with the breathing in and the breathing out. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters through your nostrils. Feel its warmth as you let go. As each new breath comes in, imagine this is the first breath you ever got to take, that every breath is fresh and new, and that each breath you're emptying and you let it go completely. No need to hang on to that old breath. And then feel that next breath that comes in. Breathing in, breathing out. And just be with the breathing. If other thoughts arise, just watch them arise and then watch them fade away. Don't cling to them, don't grab them, don't try to figure anything out, don't try to follow a thought, don't try to answer a question. Get back to your breathing as soon as you can if you wander off. That's called using your selective awareness, to be selectively aware of your breathing and just the breathing, the sound of my voice and the breathing. A feeling rises up and fades away, a thought rises up and fades away. A breath enters and fades away. A moment comes, a moment fades away. This is all there is. And gradually you discover yourself being present with this breath in, with this breath out. That's it. And then I'll teach you a little gatha that I learned from my favorite teachers, Thich Nhat Hanh. It takes 2 breaths to do this little mantra, and it goes like this: Breathing in, I relax. Breathing out, I let go. Living in the present moment, I know this is the only moment. So as you breathe in, you think, breathing in, I relax. As you breathe out, you think, breathing out, I let go. With your next breath in, living in the present moment. And the next breath out, I know this is the only moment. Be with your breathing and those words. And sometimes you have a kind of a humorous feeling. You notice yourself wanting to smile. As you watch the shenanigans of your monkey mind trying to get you to think about this or that, and if so, you might feel like a little smile forming behind your upper lip. You see the humor in it all. Let yourself smile a little bit, a smile of happiness, of enjoyment. The beautiful discovery of each new breath and the immense spaciousness of this moment. Good. And then gradually you can let yourself tune back into the outside environment and go ahead and See what thoughts come to mind and see what your experience was during that time. And maybe ask yourself if there's a— if there are times during the day when you, when you might like to let yourself have that kind of experience, that little, that little mindfulness experience. So those are the kind of experiences we have the opportunities for I talked about in any crisis there's a danger and the opportunity. The brain has a negative bias, so it always seeks out the danger. But now you want to see the opportunities. So this is one opportunity, and I want you to be thinking about what other opportunities this lockdown situation has for you. You know, some of the wisest people of all time, They go off into the mountains and they lock themselves into a cloister and they stay there for a year or two or three years and they just meditate. They just block themselves off from the world and go within. What happens when they do that? You get closer and closer to something more central. You become less and less subject to all of the challenges that are thrown at us by this high-speed world we live in. This is an opportunity to touch this deeper place. It's all going to be back soon. We're not going to be able to avoid it. We're going to be living in the midst of it. But for now, we've got some space, and you've still got a few more weeks, probably a few more months, to discover this. So think about setting a time once or twice a day to make this connection. People talked also about being lonely and missing their connections, missing the warmth and the intimacy. Mm, sometimes it's a good idea to be without it, and you're missing it, but you're also appreciating it. Really appreciating it. You don't have it, and that's okay. It doesn't have to be excruciatingly painful, but you can be aware that it's missing. And instead of looking at the missing piece of it, look at how valuable it is to you. And you're going to feel it even more over the next few weeks. And maybe you can start connecting with those people in another way. There may be things you want to say to people that you haven't said. Maybe you want to tell people how valuable they are to you in your life. Maybe you're appreciating the relationship and having that, that feeling of compassion for other people. And your appreciation and compassion, that's a beautiful gift. And to have a gift like that, and it's like feeling is like having a gift like that, that's beautifully wrapped, but if you don't give that gift, you've missed an opportunity. So make some contact with people and, you know, let them know how important they are to you, including the people that you're, that you're locked away with. On the other hand, there are those who are locked away with kind of a large family or with people that are not getting along really well with. Next week I'm going to go more into that, but a piece of it is how do you get quiet time? Recognize your need for it and at least give yourself time that you shut off. If it means going in the bathroom, plugging up your ears, or putting in earphones, preferably noise-canceling earphones, they're good, and even maybe playing a little bit of music through those noise-canceling earphones. Everybody's gone at that point. Or maybe just the sound of a, of a river or a creek or an ocean. And take your time and be alone. And you can complain that, oh, you don't have any time alone, or you can make yourself take time. Well, you go out and sit in the car go for a walk and sit in the park. It's time to find a way to take that space to yourself and learn to really use it. In that space, decide on some strategies that you can use to maintain separation from the people that you're with in the way that you need to, to be able to sit down and say, um, you know, all of the time during the day, you come at me about this, that, or the other questions or doubts or whatever it might be. How about if we just set a time that we meet for a half hour in the morning, and during that time we talk about the problems? And then maybe we can set up a half hour during the day that we get together and talk about the good things and remember some of the good things and maybe reminisce, if we're a family, about some of the things that we've, that we've loved together. Think about those things when you're alone and then see if you can craft that. And tomorrow— not tomorrow, next week— I'll be talking about some of the ways that we can look at relationships and some of the ways that we can, that we can transform our relationships. And a number of people who were last here last week had truly major problems. The loss of a loved one and terrible discoveries about that loved one's behavior back when they were alive that weren't known at all. Enormous sense of, of betrayal. Children who've become addicts and that kind of loss, which is tremendous. I would say, yes, it is, it is best to be able to seek the counsel of someone who knows how to deal with the sorts of issues that you're working with. Those kinds of losses The, the way to get through those losses is really through discovering or rediscovering love, connecting with people that you know and love and people who can be supportive and loving with you, particularly people with whom you can unburden yourself and share what's going on with someone who really knows how to listen and be there, who doesn't feel like they have the need to solve your problem, because then that's no good. They just end up feeling miserable. But if there's someone who can share it and know that a problem shared is half relieved, it's amazing. Because the moment you're able to put your feelings into words for another caring human being, it begins to transform what you have. It takes you out of that intense loneliness where you, you know, where you spend your time. Getting out of that spot as soon as possible is really valuable. Grieving, as we talked about before, is an extremely important part of the letting go process, and letting go is something we often have to do in our lives. And the grieving has to do with truly feeling the sadness but not letting ourselves be overwhelmed by it. And that's why it's always good to get into that meditative state, that deeply relaxed state in the present. There was a man who once, he was robbed. This is an ancient story. And people said to him, says, you must feel terrible about this thief breaking in. You know, while you're asleep and robbing you. And the man said, well, actually, I feel really good. Why do you feel good? He says, well, he took a lot, but he didn't take everything. Secondly, he just took things. He didn't take my life. I feel good about those things, but especially I feel good because it was he who did the stealing. But not me, because I'm so appreciative of what I am. Or someone said to Mother Teresa, you see these people, the sickest of the sick, the poorest of the poor, and yet you never get depressed. How do you do that? She said, well, I look in their eyes and I see Jesus Christ. How could I be depressed? Yeah, I mean, when I heard that story, I said, wow, I want, I want some of what she's having. I unfortunately never was given that opportunity to love Jesus as much as she, but I did set out in my life to find out what it was that I did love. That what was at my spiritual dimension— and we're going to focus on that in a few weeks because that's, that's where I really love to be, but we're still looking at symptoms and so forth. So again, you're being at that peaceful, quiet place inside. Find your— the spiritual part of yourself and love it. The memories, the joy that you've had in your life, and remember them and connect with people that you love or new people that you learn to love. It's so valuable to be able to do that. If you're not able to do that because the feelings are too overwhelming, so you can't get into the relaxed state, and/or you're not able to connect with those sources of love— importance of the sources of love, again Love and life and healing are all different words for the same phenomenon. Love, life, and healing. When you fill yourself with love, you get more healing. As you lose love, then you get sicker mentally, physically, emotionally, behaviorally, and in your relationships. Every study shows that if you lose relationship, love, if you love your sense of spirituality, if you're feeling alone, you're— it goes down. A lonely person, to be lonely means, I think I've mentioned this before, that your increased likelihood of physical illness goes up as much as if you were smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or we're grossly obese and overweight. I mean, that's how important it is. Love is very, very important. So if you're having trouble getting to that for you, then it's important for you to have some help. And again, counseling, uh, is really worthwhile. Okay, so that is being at that quiet place is so important, and that's really what I want to talk about. That's what I am talking about this time. Love, healing, and the coronavirus. Come back to love. Read the poems that bring you love. Listen to the music that brings a tear to your eye. You have songs like that that just make you feel so tender and so sweet. Hear that, hear that piece of music. Yeah, collect a few of them on Spotify and then listen to them. And as well, listen to some of those songs that inspire you. I just made a little Spotify collection for one of my clients. And what do we have in there? You'll Never Walk Alone, we'll have The Bluebird of Happiness, The Sunny Side of the Street, Whistle a Happy Tune, I mean, songs that tell you you can really, that that power exists within you. So those are some of the things that you can begin doing, tapping into that power. Again, if you can't do that then you're not healing. And grief is a way of healing because when you, when you grieve, you're grieving basically the physical loss from your life of whatever it is that you're grieving. But that which was in your life, the spirit of what you had, still exists within you. But you got to get through the, the grieving, like of a person. You lose that person, you lose their body, you can't see them, you can't hug, terrible. But there's a love that you experienced for them. It wouldn't hurt so bad if you didn't love them that much. That spirit still lives within you. Find that spirit. And for the gentleman who asked that question about then wanting to find a new partner having tragically lost his previous one. Complete that grieving, find the love, find the beauty of that love, and let it radiate from you in your relationships. And women are drawn to that. They will be. And if you're a woman, it's the same thing. Your ability to be present in that way instead of saying, oh my gosh, I don't want to take another risk. Life is all about risk. Feel the letting go with each breath out. Feel the fresh new breath with each breath in. And imagine you can take in each new experience in that way. In Thich Nhat Hanh's groups, what he would do is there's a chime And people would be having conversations, he'd be speaking, or there'd be whatever was going on. And whenever the chime rang, that was the signal for everything to stop, and everyone would go into the meditative place. Ding! Watching the breathing and thinking to yourself, I'm breathing in. With the breathing out, think to yourself, I'm breathing out. In that little pause after breathing out, think this is the pause. At the end of the breathing in, there's a moment's pause, feel that pause too. And breathing out, experience each, experience each new breath as being fresh and new, as if this was your first breath. Imagine you had your eyes bandaged up for 5 years, and then one day you're going to have the bandages removed and you'd be able to see, and you opened your eyes. How marvelous would the colors appear to you? How fantastic would green leaves look, red roses, a blue sky? Do you have to have your eyes bandaged up in order to appreciate what you see? Each new breath— ah, wow, another breath, how wonderful! How grateful I am to the source of that breath. How grateful I am to that spirit that starts each new breath even when I'm fast asleep. That's the frame of mind. And then the 4-step gatha: breathing in, I relax. Breathing out, I let go. Living in the present moment, I know this is the only moment. It takes you 2 breaths to get through it. Once more. Breathing in, I relax. Breathing out, I let go. Living in the present moment, I know this is the only moment. To have the serenity to accept the things we can't change. That means accepting the world as it is. Stop wanting it to be different. Stop wanting things to not have happened. I can sit here all day and talk about how I wish this virus hadn't come into being, or I wish that Chinese had handled it differently, or I wish that our country had at least a modicum of intelligence in terms of how we're handling— I mean, It's, uh, but I can accept that it's true, and I can be at peace with that acceptance and with the losses in my life, the major losses in my life. I'm not happy that it happened, but I can be at peace with it. And that's what meditation, deep relaxation, self-hypnosis, selective awareness is all about— finding that peace. The mindfulness, the being present. And in, in getting there, in coming to that place, you begin to realize that you're not alone, that we're all really, really connected. And you're connected in another way, underground, if it were, to her. And so you can be with her inside and see her as healthy and well. See her as the beautiful person you knew her to be. Speak to her, tell her how much you love her, how much joy she's brought into your life. And share with her and tell her she always has a place to be in your heart. And you will love her always. Create a little beautiful— you know what she likes. Is it the beach? Is it the mountain? Sitting under a tree? Create a little place for her in your heart, in your meditation. And the next day when you go and meditate again, you'll find her in that place and give totally to that. And that part of you that wants to be critical because you're not doing it another way, or you should do it this way, or whatever that is. Go beyond that part of you. Love yourself completely and begin to trust that you have the power to be there in that way. And again, allow your awareness to go inside. Be with your breathing. Let each breath be fresh and clear. Imagine you're breathing in colors with each breath. Breathing out, imagine you're emptying yourself of any shadows. You're breathing out carbon dioxide, you're also breathing out all the toxic products of metabolism from your body. Breathe out stress, Breathe out tension. Allow those waves of relaxation to flow through your body. Now I'm breathing in, now I'm letting go, and now there's a pause. And imagine that there's a fiber of light going from my mind to your mind. Imagine there's a fiber of light going from your mind to each of the other minds that are participating together with us. Just as a fiber of light and love going from my mind to the minds of each of us who are meditating together now. And imagine there's a shaft of golden light from my heart flowing into yours. My heart is completely open and sharing that light. Yours is completely open, receiving it and reflecting back golden light to me. And picture that going between you and each of the others who are joined with us today, and between each of them and each of the others and to me. Linking us all together. It's what the Hindus call Indra's net. Indra's net, I-N-D-R-A. Look it up if you don't know it. And let us feel our connection and feel and know that in a certain way we are one. And because we are one, we can tap into collective consciousness, collective intelligence, and collective wisdom. And with it, we can heal ourselves, and we can heal this beautiful blue planet that we're now able to see because the smog is lifted. Let's imagine that our smog lifts as well. And that we can see ourselves clearly and love what we see, because the essence of who we are is beautiful, and that which is not beautiful is just a smudge on the surface. Breathe it away with each breath out. Sink into that pause and cherish each new breath. And until we meet again next week, same bat time, same bat channel, remember, stay tuned.

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