Where are you in the coronavirus continuum? Are you at home feeling physically fine, yet anxious and depressed? Are you missing a loved one who’s quarantined, feeling frustrated, wanting to help? Or is the virus with you, and you’re seeking something to sustain you, to get through? For all the precious moments we are currently experiencing as a culture – both the guarded ones, and the unguarded ones – here are some thoughts to help you cultivate hope and equanimity during this challenging time.

1. Remember to monitor your beliefs about sickness. Understand that all healing occurs within you, and the most powerful force that sustains life is within you at this very moment. Whether or not a vaccine is available at present doesn’t hold sway when it comes to this very essential truth. The body’s natural rhythm always moves toward healing on its own.

2. Invest in yourself. Under different circumstances, you might have valued time at home to rest, reflect, spend more time with loved ones, or take up a hobby. Look to those things now, whether it’s writing a great novel (or reading one), planning a holiday lovefest over Skype, sinking into an online course, or simply taking time to write a list of desires for the rest of your life. With that one, you’ll be ready to go when the world opens up.

3. Spring clean. If you’re not currently sick, draw new, fresh energy to your surroundings by impacting the things you can change. Clear out drawers, pockets, and cob-webbed corners, and dispense with anything that brings your vitality down when you engage with it. Everything you own and see has vibration, and it either enhances your world, or dulls it. Take a good look around, and leave space for more welcoming things to come in, past this moment.

4. Focus on love. Whatever you mourn for, whether it’s friends who’ve passed due to the virus, a job loss, savings loss, or the temporary loss of freedom, refuse to make that your lens. For every downbeat experience, shift. Shift to something you love, and quickly. If you feel resentment, try to release it as best you can. You’ll feel the pain of those losses, but the more you focus on gratitude the more relief you’ll feel. And the more love you feel, the less fear can take hold.

5. Open a window. Simple but effective. Assuming there are no people in your immediate vicinity, let the gentle spring breeze in, and shift the air in your space. Air out negative feelings too. Try breathing in deeply and then blowing out any dark thoughts when they come, like you would candles on a cake. All things of nature have spirit, and the spirit of air can make you feel open and expansive while you’re at home.

6. Plan for increased joy. Write down five life-affirming things that would make you ridiculously happy that you never thought of before. Take your time and delight in the possibilities. Then start doodling, and plan for ways to do at least two of them, in detail, either now, or in the near future.

7. Plant your own food. You can’t plant toilet paper, but if you’re well enough to do so, it’s spring, the time to make brilliant things grow. Order some seeds online, find a receptive patch of earth, and enjoy putting your hands in Mother Earth. Plant foods high in vitamin C that will help keep your immunity high.

8. Commune with your Creator. Even if you believe in nothing in particular, whatever you do believe in, go to that. Take comfort in that. Expand your awareness of what you like and dislike. Choose how you’ll engage with more of what you like, and don’t dwell on dislike. Consider the tests your ancestors endured with dignity. Find strength in your essence and your heritage.

9. Just be. Make no demands on yourself, ask no questions, tell no tales, and sink into your own heart, where all answers lie. Be present and enjoy being still, with no agenda, need to engage, or need to produce anything of merit for anyone. Just for a while.

10. Re-engage with the world at your own pace. Whatever arises within you as a result of this time, use the knowledge you’ve gained from it. Let it expand you, let it motivate you to be more, let it not vanquish your spirit. There is a masterful life force within you. That makes you bigger than the virus will ever be.