Understanding Covid — 19 — When you are in hospital: A spiritual point of view.

Steven R. Covey once said that we live in a Personality Ethic society, based on quick fixes and the “credit card culture”. I have taught different subjects ever since I decided to become an educator and I used to tell my students that we live in a microwave culture, where we want everything in 30 seconds or less. It is no surprise, then, that those paradigms are so embedded into our minds that our selfishness takes over them and makes us ignore reality, until reality hits us with a respirator, tubes and the uncertainty of whether you will live or die.

I do not intend to make this a long post, especially because with many years writing for newspapers and radio shows, I know many words tend to cram the ideas and not convey them as they should. Covid 19 is no joke and people are dying from it, and we, need to take care of ourselves. Hence, it is important to understand where it comes from and the damage that it can do, so you avoid ending in hospital as I did.

First of all, this article does not seek to explain what Covid 19 is from a scientific point of view, it rather seeks to explain why it is important to take care of yourself and apply effectiveness before getting sick. I made the huge mistake to have smoked and that landed me in hospital, so needless to say, if you were a smoker you are at risk of ending up with a respirator connected to you, but if you are still smoking, your chances are even greater to become in need of oxygen or even surviving the terrible cough and pneumonia that the virus may cause.

I cannot emphasise enough the need for us to get out and exercise. We need to strengthen our cardiovascular systems if we wish to have a fighting chance against this disease. By the same token, we need to eat well and sleep well. This might sound like trite advice, but it is timeless advice and it could be timely advice if you have not been struck by the virus and still have time to do something for your life.

We tend to be arrogant and not look at the gorilla that is staring in front of us, to paraphrase Jim Collins in “Great by Choice”, a book about how companies become great and generate ten times the earnings of their counterparts in a given industry. In the social experiment, people are so busy looking at the sides that almost no one saw the man dressed as a monkey who came in front of the screen. So does it happen with life. We are so busy filling schedules, serving customers and worrying about the things that we do not have control over, that we overlook what we can control, like exercising, eating well and sleeping well.

It is no secret that our culture is characterised by not being able to sleep. We are so busy and enslaved to our mobile devices and computers, that we even go to bed with them and we fall asleep with them. All this has taken a toll on our health and at the risk of subordinating topics, these must be said to understand why it is important to unplug from the net and begin living in the physical world again, especially with a disease that will not go away and can make people ill at any moment. Spend more time with your loved ones, physically, if possible, and less time arguing or fighting on social media, especially Facebook which has become a manipulating machine which seeks tribalism and only allows you to see what the preacher preaches to the choir and not anything else.

Regardless of whether the virus was the product of nature or humanly-created, the fact is that there is no vaccine nor a cure for it, so we are all exposed to it. Having this been said, it is important to strengthen our cardiovascular systems and be mindful of the places we visit. Covid 19 is no longer a pandemic, that is, the worldwide spread of a new disease, according to the definition given by the World Health Organisation, WHO, but it has become endemic, in other words, a constant presence and prevalence of a disease in a given geographical area, which is why we need to be mindful of its existence and consequences if we wish to remain as healthy as the circumstances may allow it. This holds especially true nowadays, because being endemic means that it can surface anytime, anywhere.

Now let us get to the main point of this article, which is how I dealt with Covid 19 being hospitalised and how this helped me get closer to God. This is an article which might not be too attractive, especially in our Personality Ethic culture, because it deals with spirituality, a subject than many frown or shun upon, but that it has been the basis of many civilisations throughout human history and, in our case, of our Western civilisation.

When I went to hospital my oxygen level was at 54. There was also a threat that my body would liberate cytokines because my ferritin levels were sky-high. I was hospitalised immediately and thankfully not for long. But here is where the story becomes interesting to those who are believers, because faith literally saved me.

I do not hold a particular religious belief, but I have been influenced by Judaism in many aspects, especially when it comes to approaching the concept of faith. My conclusion after having become seriously ill with Covid 19 is that this is a disease of faith, because there is no vaccine, there is no cure and you are bound to get sick again, due to the fact that your body does not develop antibodies once you have suffered from that disease. Only prayer and following the medics’ orders can make us become healthy again.

As you can see, having oxygen levels at 54% and ferritin levels at more than ten times the normal level, with two out of three criteria to consider that my body had begun liberating cytokines, gives you enough reasons to understand that, medically-speaking, your chances of survival or at least remaining unscathed by Covid 19, are very slim. Yet, miraculously, I did not have any of the terrible effects that people who liberate cytokines suffer when they had this disease.

But this is where faith came in. From the teachings of Shalom Arush in his book, “The Garden of Emunah”, I remembered that faith goes through three stages. The first one has to to with the fact that God wants for whatever it is that is happening, to actually happen. Regardless of what it is, God wants it to happen and the first step one has to apply is to accept this incontrovertible fact. I came to realise that I was there because it was the Will of God for me to be there. Not until you accept the fact that it is the Will of God, are you ready to move on to the next stage of the faith process: everything that happens is for my own good.

The second stage can only be approached, until you accept that whatever is happening to you, being good or bad, comes from God. Instead of questioning “why me?”, you need to understand that there are things which are beyond the comprehension of the human mind and that they just happen, with a reason of course, as we shall see a bit later, but at the time when we go through the test, we do not have enough understanding to comprehend why is this happening to me. This is very important to grasp, because many people become desperate, they try to bargain or manipulate the situation, as if the Creator were a human being which is fallible and gullible.

It is only until we have fully internalised that is the Will of God that whatever is happening to us, is happening, when we can start believing from the bottom of our heart that whatever is occurring is for our own good. When we approach this second stage, we understand that God is the one allowing the test to happen and that it is for our own good that He allows it to happen. Not until we truly realise that whatever is happening to us is for our own good, can we move to the third and final stage of the faith process: what does The Creator want from me?

It is important to understand that faith is a gradual process. As Stephen R. Covey once put it, we move gradually in life. You do not expect to reap the sow without having planted the seed, the out-in process that our modern culture tries to instill in us. A spiritual journey and approach to God requires years, it is not something that you will attain in one day or 15 minutes. This is important to be kept in mind, along with one last concept that I am about to give you, because that is how I had a miraculous recovery and I was able to be close to death and now more close to life than ever.

I have been trying for years to polish my spirituality and to get closer to God, because my life itself is a miracle in many ways. The sole fact that I am under 40 and have a successful career and successful human relationships, with family, friends and coworkers, speaks to the infinite goodness that God has poured upon me. So, perhaps, in my case, because of all that previous spiritual work, it was easier to understand why I ended in hospital, but even if it is the first time that you truly seek spirituality, beyond religion or based on religion, you do not need to feel bad or defeated, rather, see it as a new opportunity to begin to know where you come from, the source of your very existence.

Another concept that Shalom Arush explained and that I have found in practice to be consequential and efficacious is confessing in front of God. That is, talking to God directly, knowing that He is the source of everything, so that means that he is the provider of sustenance, health, and everything else. Hence, if you have a problem, you simply turn to God in whichever language you find it easiest to talk to Him, and talk to Him, not demanding anything, because He does not owe you anything, but by asking for His benevolence.

When you confess your transgressions to God, be sure to be happy. I know what you are thinking, that makes no sense. When I first read this written by Shalom Arush, I was sceptical myself, because I could not understand how is it that after I did something bad, that is, I transgressed a precept, I was supposed to wait to be happy and cheerfully confess myself to God.

Faith and its fathoms are so deep that they go beyond any human comprehension. Logic itself, at least traditional logic, would find it contradictory, that is perhaps, because we as human beings have not been able to devise another mechanism similar to logic that might allow us to explain what goes on in the spiritual realm. Nevertheless, regardless of whether it makes sense to us or not, the truth is, from what I have experienced during many years now, that if you plan on confessing your transgressions to God, you must do it happily. Shalom Arush puts it this way: If you are sad, that means that you question God’s perfection and in a way you are complaining against Him because things are not as you think you should.

How many times have you wished for something that you wanted so badly but in the end is bad for you? Do we really know what we want or do we really know what we need? I may want something that is bad for me, and that might be why God does not give it to me. Conversely, I might want something that is good for me, but I have not prayed enough to get it.

Now, when I was lying in that hospital bed, connected to a respirator and not being able to produce enough oxygen to oxygenate my blood, I realised that the first thing I needed to do was to become happy for being there. I know that it makes no sense. Why would I be happy of being connected to a respirator and about to liberate a storm of cytokines that could kill me or leave me crippled? The answer is simple and it relates to the first stage of faith: Because that is what God wants.

If I understand that it is what God wants, then I understand that it was His Will for me to be there. Once I understood that, I can become happy because I apply the second stage of faith: everything is for my own good. That means that God wants me there because it is good for me to be there.

By having lots of spare time to think while lying in bed, connected to the respirator and poked every two to three hours to have medicine injected in me, I remembered that Shalom Arush once said that there is no tribulation without a previous transgression, so I got to work and asked God to please tell me what had I done wrong that landed me in hospital. At first, I was not happy, I was afraid and a bit sad, until I realised that if I wanted to learn the lesson that God was trying to teach me, I needed to be happy.

So I got to work, putting on a smile, which at first it was difficult, until I finally got the real smile going. With that smile I got to work and began confessing my transgressions to the Creator. I will not go into details about what they were, suffice it to say that I talked to God happily and then I began feeling better.

I was finally ready to move onto stage number three of the faith process: What does the Creator want from me?

As a lawyer, under 40, I can say that I have been very successful by society’s standards and the Personality Ethic paradigm, mentioned by Steven R. Covey. I write for the media, I cohost a show with one of the most respected academics in Costa Rica, I am a respected university professor and hold a decent client base as a lawyer. Additionally, I am a member of several commissions at the bar association and I advice politicians when it comes to public policy, because I directed and was the member of two think tanks.

Nevertheless, in spite of those achievements, my life was not complete, although I dedicate a good deal of time to pro-bono cases and helping others. With this, I am not bragging about what I do, rather, it is a duty that we human beings have towards each other, to help those in need. After all, according to Eastern wisdom, the world is based on three principles: truth, justice and charity. So, the fact that I mention a bit of pro bono does not in any way mean that I commend myself or pat myself on the back for performing what it is my human duty towards those less fortunate.

Going back to the story about Covid 19, when I was talking to the Creator about all this, I asked him to please guide me in his ways and paths, to allow me to see my calling and to do His Will. I am not a religious person, so I cannot adhere myself to religious dogmas, but I do adhere myself to the principles that most religions teach, which go beyond their dogma to embrace universal decency values.

I remembered that one of the principles mentioned by Stephen R. Covey was proactivity. The old man next to me did not want to eat anything. It was as if he had lost his will to live. So, in spite of the fact that I was also in bed and connected to a respirator, I tried encouraging him to eat.

You may have asked why I did that. I did it because it is the decent thing to do. When I first met Maykel, the nurse who gave me the most courage and support to overcome the nearby cytokine storm, he told me that three things were needed to overcome Covid 19 and get out of hospital. First, attitude, having a positive attitude made all the difference in the world. Secondly, nutrition, eating well, not skipping meals. Thirdly, the medical treatment itself. He even said that he had seen people who came in and died because they did not keep a positive attitude, while others who according to Medicine were at high risk of not making it, made it out of hospital, because they kept a positive attitude.

I immediately linked this to what Shalom Arush had said about happiness. In one of his books, he talks about the shoemaker who is always happy and ends up getting the keys of the kingdom, whereas another man, who is a wise guy but not a sage, feigns happiness and is always dissatisfied with what he has, which is why in the end things end up badly for him, precisely, because of his attitude.

Knowing that attitude was a key component in my recovery, I began to be even happier. Surprise, surprise, because not even three days had gone by since my hospitalisation and I was breathing without oxygen. When Maykel saw that, he was beside himself in happiness, celebrating our achievement.

A few days later I was released from hospital and my oxygen saturation was above 93%. Maykel told me that he had seen people recover but not so quickly. I told him it was a miracle because God wanted to show them that miracles do happen.

Anyway, I do not want to make this longer than it has to. The conclusion to which I arrived is that Covid 19 is a disease that can be cured with faith and of course following the medic’s orders. In no way am I diminishing the job done by the medical staff, but all that wonderful work is the result of God allowing that work to happen. As Stephen Covey once wrote, everything comes from God and if one understands this principle and has it internalised in one’s self, everything will fall back into place.

It would be irresponsible on my part to say that you will be out of hospital as quickly as I had, because every body is different and the way in which our bodies react to the virus will vary. But, the principles of faith stand, they show that Covid 19 is a disease, a terrible disease, but it is also a great opportunity to stop, breathe and analyse what are we doing with our lives.

To come to these conclusions I had to be hospitalised, but I do not believe that it has to be that drastic. If only had I taken my time to talk to God everyday, meditate on what I did during the day and correct those mistakes, then I would not have ended in hospital. But then again, if I had not ended in hospital I would not have this knowledge to share with you, so, in the end, everything was for my good and I hope yours too.