In my thirty years leading the American Holistic Health Association, this is the first time I have felt a pressing need to send out a personal message to you.

I want to send you loving wishes that you are finding the inner and outer resources to nurture yourself and your loved ones during these uniquely challenging days. May you be in a safe location and able to do what is needed to keep yourselves healthy.

And may you find a way to be calm. It is understandable to feel the stress of the possibility of becoming infected with the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, that is spreading around our nation and the world. But as a high level of emotional stress can have a negative impact on your immune system, I encourage you to consider what specifically you are might be concerned about and look for ways to lower your anxiety about these things—to lighten the load on your immune system.

The key message I want to share in this letter was triggered by others who were surprised that I was staying so calm, even though I am in the group “most at risk of dying from an infection with the virus” due to “severe acute respiratory syndrome“ with a “hyper-immune response.” Understand that I am not a healthcare professional, so this is not about what I am doing to stay healthy. Rather, I am sharing the process I went through to make a series of decisions about what I would do or not do to give myself the best possible opportunity to have a positive outcome. And thus to be able to sustain being confident and calm. Should you have any of the same categories of concerns I mention, perhaps what I did might offer some options to support your personal process for lessening your level of anxiety.

Chick here for the rest of this message