Our best shot could get us through this

Communication is key to navigating the coming challenges

Standing in a line at passport control in Heathrow airport as I returned from the Better Way conference in Vienna, I unwittingly encroached on the invisible one metre zone of the masked woman in front of me. Eyes wide with fear, the lady issued a muffled command in effort to make me step back. I heeded, thinking to myself: here was another victim of the psychological and emotional trauma inflicted on so many over the last 3 years. Another statistic in the new sub-category of PTSD sufferers associated with the covid-19 crisis. The only UK charity dedicated to PTSD, PTSD UK, has already projected there will be a surge in cases linked to the crisis. One wonders how many of these could be avoided if the public hadn’t been so deliberately manipulated as part of the global control agenda.  

Witnessing the loss of your loved ones is always traumatic. But we have to get some perspective on covid - and move beyond covid. Just as most of us have moved on from being obsessed about the common cold or flu. People haven’t been dying in larger than expected numbers from covid-19 or any other respiratory disease for some time. In fact, other than a few mortality blips during the initial infection waves of SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 when we saw compressed, “dry tinder” mortality of the elderly in some countries, and inappropriate and often lethal mechanical ventilation in others, excess mortality has barely been an issue. That is, until now – when it’s rising – and definitely not because of any virus.

For now, there is no killer virus out there that anyone can point to, although we can’t discount it’s return in a new mutational, more virulent form. In a best case scenario, with covid-19 being rendered no more serious than a common cold, we must still face the legacy of the last 3 years. Among the laundry list of things we now need to do, will be addressing the extensive covid-related PTSD and learning how to communicate in a world that is deeply polarised, fragmented and faces heavy censorship based on the wholly unjustified redefinition of the term “medical misinformation”. Try expressing on Facebook or Twitter the view that mass vaccination may be contributing to excess mortality or the rise in deaths among elite athletes, and you’ll know what I mean.

Despite the rise of an increasingly authoritarian agenda from governments and other elites, I hold much hope for the informed grassroots movement that so many of us are part of. This movement, by and large, takes its community responsibilities seriously, with more and more of us recognising the need to dissolve the ‘divide and conquer’ strategies dreamed up by behavioural science teams that made so many compliant enough to accept whatever health authorities chose to throw at them.

Last weekend represented a watershed moment for many of us during our first Behaviour and Communications Magic event, that my colleague Meleni Aldridge and I ran together with behaviour and communications expert, David Charalambous.  

All sessions at the Mandolay Hotel in Guildford, Surrey (UK) have been recorded and were livestreamed direct to our online audience from around the world. Those attending will have full access to all the material given some of it will benefit from multiple exposures to effect the sea changes in emotional state and behaviour that are needed to allow people with differing views to re-learn how to communicate meaningfully. We’ll also make it available to others in due course. 

So many who attended told me how they had experienced major light bulb moments. For some, it was learning about the incredibly subtle ways that behavioural science was used to manipulate the public. How, covertly, people were coerced into making decisions that they felt were informed choices benefiting from balanced information. Or how they willingly accepted the abuse from health authorities because the relationship with the authorities met an unmet need – that of belongingness – making people who had been forcibly isolated and disconnected from their communities (and from nature) feel they were then cared for. Like a child or a spouse sometimes accepts abuse from a parent or partner.

For others, it was about the techniques they learned that were about effectively breaking down barriers, about communicating meaningfully with those who have been taken in by what so many of us call the “mainstream narrative”. Learning how to not spar with those of differing views, but, instead, finding ways of sharing common ground and feeling like you’re on the same team.

For me, I am daunted, yet motivated, by what lies ahead. I realise just how much work we need to do – within the transformational movement so many of us are part of. If we’re to counter the polarity that’s been manufactured around us, we need to not judge. To not label. Just as some of us may prefer to not be labelled as “conspiracy theorists” or “anti-vaxxers”, we will have to avoid referring to us as “us” and them as “them”. Nor can we imply “they” are “unawake” if we are genuine about wanting to be on the same team, with shared goals, such as caring as much about our children or loved ones.

We must also search out the difficult conversations, and interrupt oppression, abuse and coercion whenever we witness it. There has never been a more important time to stand up for our rights – but we don’t necessarily need to fight “them” to fight for those rights.

Unity consciousness, in a world that values free will, seems like a better way forward. Tough as it’s likely to be.

‘Tough love, open heart’ is a sentiment that resonates, at least with me, and it may be just enough to help us through, to find the nirvana that’s just the other side of the turmoil that defines our current lives.

Let’s give it our best shot (and please forgive the pun).