Are the masks we wore to protect us from Covid-19 the only masks we wore, or did they take the place of the masks we wore before Covid-19 reached our shores in February 2020.
The president gazetted June 2022 that we could stop wearing masks. When I went shopping the first day after this was gazetted, greatly excited about my perceived new freedom, I was shocked to see how many people were still wearing masks. I had a great realisation that there is more to wearing masks to protect themselves against Covid-19 than people are protecting themselves from the pandemic that was here before Covid-19 arrived. The mental illness pandemic. Covid-19 has come and highlighted a society that was already sick, sick from stress, being overworked and lacking balance in our lives. We have now become “A Masked Society”.
The question that looms around in my head is, would Covid-19 have impacted us the way it did if we were a healthy, well-balanced society, that knew how to manage our stresses. I think I have found an answer as to why people are still wearing masks, it is not because they are dealing with just Covid-19, as the statistics show that the virus is not at a pandemic level. In my observation I think it is a way of tuning out avoidant behaviour, people struggle to connect because they are so disconnected, because being connected overwhelms them.
People have forgotten to smile; they have forgotten to communicate they have tuned out for so long that it has comfortably become their norm. Is the masks really to protect them from Covid-19 or is it there to help them to avoid connection, isolating them further into the mental health issues that they deal with or rather not dealing with. Let’s start dealing with the core of all our illnesses. Learning to manage our stress better and learning to live a more balanced life again.
Dr Gabor Maté discovered the following about stress and trauma in the medical field.
“Across the whole range of medical practice, [cortisol] is the most commonly used drug. If you go to any kind of a specialist; you’re going to get cortisol. Go to a skin doctor with inflamed skin, what are they going to give you? Cortisol cream. Go to a lung doctor with inflamed lungs, they’re going to give you cortisol. Go to a rheumatologist with inflamed joints, they’re going to give you cortisol. Go to a neurologist with an inflamed nervous system like in multiple sclerosis, what are they going to give you, cortisol. Go to a gastroenterologist with inflamed intestines like in Crohn’s disease or colitis, what are they going to give you? Cortisol!
Nobody’s ever asked, gosh, if we’re treating everything with a stress hormone, is it possible that stress has something to do with the onset of these diseases? It’s the obvious question. But our training gives us such a narrow perspective, we don’t even think about it. So the people that I saw with cancer and autoimmune disease, in every case, it began as a coping mechanism.”
Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me for an online counselling session. After doing an intake I might be able to help you with a few sessions using BWRT (Brainworking Recursive Therapy), read more about BWRT in another blog post on my website “What is Brainworking Recursive Therapy or BWRT?“, or we will use another technique depending on your unique needs.
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