Through all of this anxiousness, concern, and worry, you can still hear your intuition—it’s still there. If you can’t, I think it is your duty to find it.

Photo by Criene Images

It’s been a month of tragedy for all of us. How can we make things better? I know people who have been lost to this pandemic, and I’m sure you do too. It appears New York may have reached the apex of this pandemic. It can never go down fast enough, but we also need to recognize, while New York may be seeing signs of fewer cases and deaths, other areas in the country are just reaching the peak of this illness or in the middle of an apex. Many people are going to need help for the weeks ahead. The anxiety of the situation is a little less intense because we have adjusted to this “new norm,” but that does not mean it is gone.

Like so many others, I’m sure you can physically see the results of your anxiety in your cracked, dry skin from all this hand-scrubbing. But, through all of this anxiousness, concern, and worry, you can still hear your intuition—it’s still there. If you can’t, I think it is your duty to find it.

Anxiety may make it harder to find, but worries will always lessen when you shift your focus and fears away from yourself and towards helping others. So, if your anxiety is at its height, focus internally with the intent of finding something or someone you can help. Then, listen for your intuition and let it guide you.

Being at home with your family is by no means a quiet situation, but it can be a way of rooting you, and that groundedness can make your intuition stronger than ever. Since this crisis, I have tried to check in regularly with my sister and brother, who are both doctors, to see how they are doing. I ask if they still have face masks, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and how many COVID patients they are being exposed to. If I hear them say they don’t have the equipment, I will use all of my energy to find that equipment for them, like a terrier digging in the ground, or a horse running at its peak.

This morning, my intuition reminded me to check in with my good friend from college, who is a doctor in Baltimore. I asked the standard questions that are my new norm for my healthcare friends and family: How are you? Do you have masks and the PPE equipment you need? Her response was not the one I wanted to hear: she had been wearing the same N-95 mask and face shield for three weeks at the hospital. Three weeks. My first reaction was disgust. How is this possible in the United States of America? As frustrating as the answer to that question may be, my energy was not distracted from figuring out a way to help her. I told myself, “I don’t have time to answer that, because my friend is in need.”

Of all the places on the internet, my intuition nudged me to post a request on a Facebook group to see if anyone could help me get PPE equipment to my friend. Now, I can get very impatient when I want a response, even if it isn’t directed at one particular person. It’s the Aries in me. But, I told myself to be patient and went along with my morning. Just an hour later, I received one lead and was waiting to hear back. I told myself to be patient again, but the impatience in me was loud this time and led me to stare at my FB group, scrolling, and reading. I watched my toddler son out of the corner of my eye, who I am usually playing with. Today, I couldn’t play with him. I had to keep scrolling down the page.

Sure enough, that urgency was the right thing to do: I found an entry from 1 hour before from a company donating PPE face shields to healthcare workers in need. Within an hour, I had connected my friend with the contact for the donation. Unbeknownst to me, my other friend from college was on the hunt, too, and had located some N-95 masks to send out immediately.

I know this was both of our intuitions working at their best, whether we were aware of what one another was doing or not. This is an example of the tiny miracles that happen every day if you choose to see what is in front of you and be present, but continue to hope and know it is good beyond what you can ever imagine. This is just one small story, and I know there are so many others. Still, these days, little stories like this one are just as big as any other, because it ultimately comes down to the same message: love does prevail in even the most inhumane, gut-wrenching situations we experience.

It makes my stomach hurt, and my jaw tightens to think of what our frontline healthcare workers are enduring, but as much hell and loss as they are going through, they have to know that tiny miracles are happening on their behalf. There is no reason in a country like ours that they should have to endure this without the proper protection. But that’s where we can help. We all have to listen to our intuition daily to be another form of protection for these people, to have our intuition guide us towards helping them while they perform the unimaginable.

God bless our frontline healthcare workers, and please do the easy part: stay home… and please, listen to your intuition.

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