This was something I said to my buddy at a coffee shop two years ago. I was someone who used to be comfortable in my hometown of Oklahoma City but was now becoming a “wanderer.” I wanted adventure, to meet and connect with like-minded people. I didn’t want to be a sheeple (sheep + people) anymore, I wanted to wake up from The Matrix and live a different life that had been programmed into me. I wanted purpose!

My buddy encouraged me to keep evolving, saying that I’d lose friends along the way but would gain better friends. He was right, as I discovered a few months later when I spontaneously moved to Philadelphia. I didn’t know anyone, and so I put myself in the most isolating situation possible. While I eventually made friends, I was alone for the most part and forced to look inward. And I did the only thing I could do in that situation: persevere and evolve.

Now COVID-19 has placed us all in a similar situation. Isolated in every sense possible, we are all being forced to look inward and question who we are. Whether you’ve done shadow work or not, this will be a challenging time for everyone. I wrote this article specifically for anyone who is capable of doing some self-reflection work and making small changes in their lives right now, not necessarily for those facing significant hardships. And so my hope is that these 4 tips will help motivate and inspire you to persevere and evolve during these trying times.

1.) Use This Time to Re-Define Yourself, or Define Yourself for the First Time

If someone asked you to define yourself right now, could you do it? If not, this could be because of shame or inadequacy you feel, not due to a lack of self-awareness, or if you can describe yourself, then I’m sure some part of you has significantly changed since the pandemic. Either way, now’s the time for all of us to rewrite our narrative, and there are a few ways to do this: 

First, interview yourself. What do you like to do? What public figures do you admire and why? What books, podcasts, shows and films resonate most with you and why? Imagine your dream life, is there anything you can do now to start acquiring something about that life? Devote as much time as you want to this. You can do this while doing for a walk or while sitting down and journaling. If you’re a crafty person then you create a “vision” board and thumbtack your responses. There is no right way to do this, the point is to get an internal dialogue going so you can understand yourself.

Second, take a personality test. You’ve probably heard of the Myers-Briggs test, which is something I can’t recommend since I’ve never taken it, but I can recommend Human Design which is based on energy and how best to use it (every single thing in the universe, whether physical or not, is energy). There are 5 Human Design types, and I am a “Manifesting Generator” (MG). We are highly creative people who need to be working on multiple projects at once, which non-MGs will see us as lacking discipline and structure, but this is how we learn best and are our most productive. And when we go to bed at night, we need to feel exhausted, that we used our energy in the best way possible.

If you’re interested in Human Design then go to mybodygraph.com. You’ll need to enter some basic information from your birth certificate, and once you find out your Human Design type, I recommend going to authenticsynthesis.com to look at their well-written descriptions; but you can find this same info from any Human Design source.

Anyways, there is no right personality test. Take one; take many. You’ll use this in addition to your self-assessment/interview questions to identify what your new and evolved self looks like. This will be a new chapter that you’ll add to your life’s story, and most importantly, it should provide some comfort to your mind now that you have a renewed sense of who you are.

2.) Activate Your Greatest Source of Energy by Using More of Your Body

Did you know that the human heart generates an electromagnetic field of energy that’s 100 times stronger than what our brains can produce? This field of energy is in the shape of a torus and can be measured up to 3 feet away from the body, so you’ve literally had a positive or negative effect on someone without realizing it.

But now that we’ve all been quarantined, we’re wandering how do we increase our energy if we can’t be around the people or community that we love? The thing you can do right now is engage your entire body with the world as much as possible since every part of your body is an extension of your heart.

I’ve taken up a lot more writing, challenging my mind and fingers, and having taken up running for the first time in 5 years. I did so much running over the past three weeks that my recent 3-mile average pace was an impressive 7:01 mins/mile, although I ended up with swollen ankles since my body wasn’t used to that type of intensity. Still, I challenged myself and felt my energy grow as a result.

I want to close this section out with an interesting fact: every cell in our body has a torus field so if we can affect our hearts in a positive manner then we can affect our immune system accordingly. Additionally, a torus field exists around our planet, our solar system, and even the universe. So don’t take this energetic field or our hearts for granted.

3.) If You Have a Shared Purpose with a Tribe Then, Together, You Can Transcend Social Distancing

If you are not part of a tribe that shares a common life purpose or goal then you are going to feel really lost right now. We are all hitting road bumps and snags than ever before that we need like-minded people to help lift us up and carry us on. Even LeBron James can only go so far on his own—and I’m talking about under normal circumstances.

We may be physically separated from our tribe due to social distancing, but we can transcend this by utilizing technology and infusing a greater sense of purpose than ever before. I have a tribe of writers called “Story Starters” (our Meetup page), and we used to meet up once a month but are now meeting weekly via Zoom. I love our new dynamic because I’ve never felt so close to them, received so much valuable feedback, or felt as challenged to produce my best work as I do now!

If you do not have a tribe then find one online (all Meetup groups are now virtual), and if you can’t find a tribe with your particular interests then start one! You can also be part of a tribe that never meets up but is still making an impact on the world: Just look at all the people sewing face masks for healthcare workers on the front lines, they are acting on an individual basis yet are part of one collective tribe.

So no matter what your tribe is, or what it looks like, be an active participant in it and be in service to others. This is an integral part of being able to cope with COVID-19.

4.) Don’t Practice Gratitude, Just Say a Simple “Thank You”

We are living in a dreaded and unprecedented time that it seems like there’s little, if anything, to be grateful for. Many people are experiencing financial hardships due to the lost of a job, many businesses have been forced to shut down, people may be working a job for the paycheck but their lives are at risk. Then there are those people who have been infected with the virus and, unfortunately, may not have recovered from it. All of this has only exacerbated the stress and anxiety that society was feeling beforehand.

I’m not here to tell you to practice “gratitude” or “mindfulness” in the sense of setting aside some time and doing a virtual meditation session. No, I want you to simply take a moment out of your life and say something you’re thankful for. Why? Because you’ll rise above the rest if you’re able to be thankful for something when there is nothing to be thankful for. In most people’s eyes, you would have achieved the “impossible.”

Do you need some ideas? How about being thankful for overcoming everything in your life to get to this point in time?…Or maybe someone is thankful for you but they’ve never told you that, so think about that…None of us get to chose our birth, death is inevitable whether we bring it upon us or not, and the only thing we can control is our thoughts. And so I want to thank you for reading this because my words wouldn’t mean anything without you.

Conclusion: If You Can Make a Small Change in the Dark Then Imagine What You Can Do in the Light

None of us can change the state of the outer world but, as mentioned above, we can change the state of our internal world. Our bodies can respond to the power of our thoughts and this can shift us into a different frequency. This will create new energy that we can transform into motivation. And this motivation will inspire us take action, and we will repeat this day after day, even when we don’t feel like it.

And when this is all over, we’ll look back on today and realize that we were able to make it through all of this based on our thoughts alone. And if we were able to achieve all of this when times were bad, then imagine what we’ll be capable of achieving when times are good. This is the light that’s at the other end of the tunnel. Now let’s all help each other get through this.