Stop the bullying and tale telling, please, folks.

After posting earlier about the current NZ climate, I felt compelled to have a bit of a rant on FB.

Here's what came flowing out of my virtual mouth to start with:

Being surrounded by so many terrified people, I've been thinking today about the nature of fear, and what it does to us. Among other things, it reduces immunity, shuts down our logical brain in favour of our primitive brain and sends us into survival mode. When we're in survival mode, many things appear threatening and we react with anger.

Did anyone notice how Stuff (one of our NZ propaganda, I mean news, sites) kept saying we were anxiously waiting for yesterday's announcement? Ramp up the fear, guys, why don't you? I wasn't anxious at all and I hope none of you were. Why be anxious when it was obvious what the announcement was going to be? Why be anxious at all? It doesn't help.

One of the ways that's playing out is terror and anger upon seeing someone without a mask. Who has witnessed someone bullying a person who isn't wearing a mask, when they don't know anything about the person's personal history and health status? That's just not ok.

Our kind (bahahaha) government and PM are encouraging us be fearful, and encouraging us to tell tales on someone who we think is not being mask compliant. That's not ok either. Again, we don't know anything about another person's personal history and health status.

And why should we be so afraid? Virology expert Dr Chris Smith told Mike Hosking (kiwi radio host) that, yes, the Delta variant is more transmissible than previous strains. But the other thing he said, the bit nobody in government is telling us, is that it is NOT more deadly. He isn't the only medical expert saying that. So why are they encouraging us to be so terrified of it?

Please don't be, people. Respect it, sure. Take care of your immunity, of course. If you are specially vulnerable, take whatever steps you need to protect yourself, that's sensible. But how about we all assume that everybody else out there is doing their best right now? Stop the tale telling, stop the abuse and the bullying, and walk a mile in their shoes.

Then go and deal with your fear. YOUR fear. Yes, the govt has encouraged it, aided by their minions in the media, but ultimately it's your choice to allow the fear to stay with you..

Tapping (EFT) is always one of my go-to's for dealing with emotions. The Access Consciousness Clearing statement is awesome. Deep breathing, meditation, prayer, get your joy on. What's your favourite way to get out of fear?

But then saner heads prevailed. They talked me down, asked me who my target audience was and reminded me about FB attention spans. So here's the censored version that finally got posted:

Being surrounded by so many terrified people, I've been thinking about fear, and what it does to us. Among other things, it reduces immunity, shuts down our logical brain in favour of our primitive brain and sends us into survival mode. When we're in survival mode, many things appear threatening and we react with anger.

One of the ways that's playing out is anger when seeing someone without a mask. Who has witnessed someone bullying a person who isn't wearing a mask, when they don't know anything about the person's personal history and health status? That's just not ok.

We are also being encouraged to tell tales on someone who we think is not being mask compliant. That's not ok either, for the same reasons.

Do we need to be so afraid? Virology expert Dr Chris Smith told Mike Hosking that, yes, the Delta variant is more transmissible than previous strains. But the other thing he said is that it is NOT more deadly. Other medical experts are saying that it's actually getting weaker. So it's no more scary than the first three variants, maybe less.

Please don't be so fearful. Respect it, sure. Take care of your immunity, of course. If you are specially vulnerable, take whatever steps you need to protect yourself, that's sensible. But how about we all assume that everybody else out there is doing their best right now? Stop the tale telling, stop the abuse and the bullying, and walk a mile in their shoes.