It’s been far too long since I’ve stretched my fingers across the keyboard. This past year has been…devastating, frustrating, infuriating. It has also been enlightening, invigorating, and eye-opening. A true experience in the opposites that life throws our way.

The Frustrating

In April 2020, I lost an incredible contract position at a local hospital where I was providing acupuncture services to patients. The scare of COVID saw many departments close down, budgets shift, and multiple services dry up.

We are being told that our God-given immune system isn’t enough. That the miracle that is the human body needs to be masked, quarantined, isolated, tracked, and jabbed with experimental drugs in order to be healthy. We are being conditioned to see our fellow humans as disease vectors. We are being manipulated to fear touch, we are losing the magic of facial expression and non-verbal communication.

In December 2020, I closed my private practice after building it up for five years. The ripple effect of the pandemic dropped my business by 50-60%. I weathered the storm as long as I could. Keeping my bills paid, my small staff on the payroll, and the lights on. A Payroll Protection Loan helped stretch it out a few more months, but in the end it just wasn’t enough.

I sometimes felt like a caged animal. Powerless against what was happening outside. Waiting, often impatiently, for some good news. This stress was compounded by being thrust into home schooling our kids. (Virtual public school…it was a hot mess) Trying to motivate our elementary school age kids to sit in front of a Zoom call for hours at a time. Battling through virtual homework assignments. Making sure everything got turned in on time. Balancing being a parent and a teacher is not easy. My hat is off to parents who successfully home school.

I’ve had friends and family members lose jobs. I’ve seen too many businesses close. I’ve seen too many relationships strained in the wake of this pandemic.

The Enlightening

As our world swirled into chaos, I found myself becoming increasingly calm. The fear that gripped the world was unable to hold me it its grasp. With my training as a naturopathic physician, I was no stranger to the fact that our medical system is broken and biased. I was not shocked when the truth about effective medical interventions were censored, deleted, vilified, politicized.

Decades ago, at the rise of the American Medical Association, natural therapies and traditional medical practitioners were metaphorically burned at the stake. (Look up The Flexner Report, and its impact on “alternative” medicine.) Anything that didn’t support the use of invasive surgery or petroleum-based pharmaceutical drugs was defunded, censored, deleted. History repeats itself today.

Vitamin D deficiency and increased risk for a worse presentation of COVID-19? You better shut your mouth! Using high-dose vitamin C, quercetin, and zinc to help quell the symptoms of a viral respiratory infection? Blasphemy! I’ll have your head on a stake! Spending time outside, breathing fresh air? Exercising at the gym or outdoors? I’m warning you!

I am eternally grateful for my medical training. Once your eyes have been opened to the manipulation, it’s near impossible to close them again. And we are, without a doubt living in a time of extreme manipulation.

We are being told that our God-given immune system isn’t enough. That the miracle that is the human body needs to be masked, quarantined, isolated, tracked, and jabbed with experimental drugs in order to be healthy. We are being conditioned to see our fellow humans as disease vectors. We are being manipulated to fear touch, we are losing the magic of facial expression and non-verbal communication.

We are doing untold damage to ourselves and our children. A fearful population is a population that is easily controlled. I’m seeing more and more anxious, depressed, apathetic patients in my office now. I’m convinced the collateral mental and emotional damage from this pandemic will echo through generations.

I’m glad I’m aware of the manipulation. I hope you can see it too.

A verse in the Bible has carried me through this past year. I’ll close with it. It’s in 2 Timothy, chapter one, verse seven:

”For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Ditch the fear. Cultivate a sound mind. It will empower you.