The Spiritual Meaning of COVID-19
We’re all familiar now with COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus. Most of us have encountered it intimately, whether through infection, vaccination, or both. But it’s a new virus, and such a strange one—it shows up often as a cold or flu, but sometimes as vomiting and diarrhea. It can have some strange symptoms, like loss of taste and smell, pink eye, light sensitivity, mental fog, rashes, menstrual changes, and “COVID toes,” where your toes turn purple. For some people, the COVID-19 infection is no big deal, while others get hit hard for weeks or even months, and we know that it can threaten our lives.
There are many layers to why we get sick with one thing as opposed to another. There isn’t always a rhyme or reason to it, but understanding the energetic signature of a certain illness or injury can help us align ourselves with what’s best for us spiritually, physically, and psychologically. If you are sick, talk to your doctor or health practitioner about your best course of action. But we can complement that health advice by looking at things from a more spiritual perspective and see if there’s anything we can learn from the illness. What is the spiritual meaning of COVID-19?
Change
The major energetic signature of the coronavirus is change. It is an illness that was born in a very difficult time in human history. It has resonances with climate change, political unrest, and overpopulation. As scary as this may seem, humans have survived this long largely through adaptation—through change. What if we could understand this virus as an invitation to evolve, to become better as individuals and collectively? Let’s consider the following questions:
How do you relate to change in general?
Are there major changes happening in your life or in the world around you?
Have you noticed that the way you’ve been doing things isn’t working the way it used to?
If COVID-19 was giving you an opportunity to shed a certain skin, could that be useful for you?
Are you ready to grow the new skin that comes once the old one is sloughed off?
If you could imagine this illness as a time of pause to upgrade, how would you want to come out of it on the other side?
Respiratory Issues/Fatigue:
The lungs have a relationship with grief, and if a cough is the major symptom of COVID-19 for you, this may be an opportunity to fully process, grieve, and release whatever you’ve had to let go of so that you can move forward into the next stage of your life. With lung issues often comes fatigue, and that can last much longer than the other symptoms (possibly especially when we don’t have enough time to rest when we’re ill). Grief and fatigue often come together, and one of the things grief needs is simple rest to contemplate, feel, or dream in the quiet.
Have you been grieving something, whether personal or collective?
Have you given yourself enough time and space to do that grieving?
Can you allow grief, even if you don’t think it will help?
Were you noticing signs of mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion before you got sick?
Is there something you are “sick and tired” of that you could actually let go of or stop doing?
Is your fatigue allowing you to grieve, feel, sleep, and dream, which are all important for emotional processing?
Have you needed to pause in your life? Have you been wishing for a break?
What is the fatigue forcing you to stop doing or start doing?
Sinus issues/Brain Fog:
When our sinuses are blocked or stuffed up, our intuition, or our third eye, is obscured. This is sometimes related to overthinking, often as a defense against seeing a truth we may want to avoid. If you’ve also got brain fog, you actually can’t think. This could be a useful way for your body to point you toward other forms of knowing.
Do you tend to get stuck in your head a lot?
Have you felt frustrated by a problem or issue and tried to think your way out?
What other coping strategies do you have besides thinking, obsessing, planning, analyzing?
What does it feel like to be forced to be in a simplified present?
If you focus on the feelings of your body and your heart instead of your mind, what is your body telling you?
Vomiting/Diarrhea/Fever/Sweating
Vomiting and diarrhea are powerful energetic cleansers. Fever works in a very similar way, with sweat helping to purge what needs to leave the body physically and energetically. The best thing you can do here is surrender and then gently replenish your body with clean water and nourishing food when you’re ready.
Is there something you need to cleanse, clear, or release, like a bad experience or time in your life?
Is there something happening you’ve been having trouble “digesting”?
Is there a “no” you’ve been needing to express but haven’t quite been able to?
Vascular Issues:
COVID seems to have a major effect on the flow of blood, for some people, leading to things like “COVID toes,” blood clots, and other issues. Here we would want to look at how we experience flow in our lives.
Are you open to the flow of change or do you resist it?
Do you feel “blocked” in some part of your life?
When you experience emotion, do you let it flow or try to resist it?
Where do you need to open up and let go in your life?
Loss of Taste and Smell:
Losing the ability to taste and smell is a powerful statement of withdrawal from the pleasures of food and connection. It is a need to remove oneself from the experience of living for a period of time, possibly in order to create new ways of experiencing on the other side.
Have you experienced depression lately?
Have you been working with feelings of wanting to give up or stop trying?
Have you been experiencing pleasure in life with full presence?
What would need to change within you to allow the experience of pleasure to return?
Is there something “bad” you haven’t wanted to feel, thus shutting down the good as well?
What would you need to do to accept the “bad” so that you could also experience the “good”?
Looking at the spiritual meaning of an illness or symptom does not give us the means to control it. It also does not imply that we are to blame for our illnesses. Rather, paying attention in this way gives us a chance to listen to the language of the body and learn something on another level. What could COVID-19 be teaching you about your life path, what you want and need, where you are going, and how you take care of yourself? What do you need to change within yourself to go with the flow of a changing world?