Personal Resilience: Survival Strategies for Pandemic Times

By Séverine Obertelli and Peter Tarlow

Humanity suffers from crises and disasters constantly. But the breadth of the latest crisis-the Covid-19 pandemic-has affected almost all corners of the world and has caused millions of deaths and so many more victims who have survived its worst effects but

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quest Publishing
• Release date: May 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9780976941651

Séverine Obertelli

Séverine is an internationally respected speaker and expert who lectures on personal resilience and development. Her course touches on how we can promote physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual well-being practices. As a personal and business coach, she aids people from all walks of life to balance their careers, businesses, and family commitments. Séverine's teaching provides strategies for developing life balance and personal fulfillment. Her work has become especially important during these times of pandemics and lockdowns. Séverine teaches us how to use our values, spirituality, and faith to not only survive during a pandemic but to thrive. Beyond her work with individuals, Séverine has worked with a wide range of international boards in the fields of tourism and hospitality. She emphasizes the need for collaboration and innovative thinking as tools to create greater social impact and accountability. In the world of consulting Séverine is well-known for her innovation and organizational strategies and for helping entrepreneurs, business leaders, and corporate organizations to develop global impacts while enhancing their personal, social, and economic assets.

Book preview

Prologue

PERSONAL CRISES IN THE TIMES OF COVID-19

When my colleagues and I first considered writing this book or its earlier companion Personal Reconstruction, no one had ever heard of coronavirus or COVID 19. Just a mere three years ago it was unimaginable that we’d be confined to our homes sheltered-in-place, and toilet paper would become almost more valuable than petroleum.

At the start of last year very few foresaw that in just a few short weeks boom economies would be on the verge of collapse, that international borders would be reestablished and globalization might well come to its end. But in mere weeks, by February of 2020, our lives had changed.

Around the world, constitutional and democratic liberties gave way to the effects of a worldwide pandemic. In this new world, churches and synagogues switched to online worship, parks and restaurants closed, sporting events ceased to exist and in some places traditional voting gave way to health concerns.

The pandemic also produced new heroes. People who worked in the medical profession became international superstars, and the public gained a great deal of respect and admiration for those manning the front lines: from truck drivers to postal workers, from cashiers to law enforcement officers and firefighters.

For many who were familiar with the work of the Nobel Prize winner for literature, author Gabriel García Márquez, it felt like we had entered into the pages of his world famous book, El Amor En Los Tiempos Del Cólera. Although lost in English translation, Spanish speakers immediately caught the title’s irony. By his book’s title, did García Márquez’ mean Love In the Times of Cholera or Love In the Times of Rage? Or was it Love In the Season of Illness? Or, did he mean them all? This multiple play-on-words and the irony expressed in Garcia Marquez’ book seems to be a perfect fit for our times as the world is raged by today’s cholera, the sofocating coronavirus.

Despite the fact that in 2018 none of us had any idea of the obstacles we would face just two years later the basic premises of this book are as relevant and meaningful as ever. We designed Personal Reconstruction and this book, Personal Resilience, under the premise that there are four major pillars that cause personal crises: those provoked by economic, legal, psychological, and spiritual problems. In reality often these problems interconnect, and the 2019 pandemic that has stretched into 2021 has been triggering crises in all four pillars on innumerable people everywhere.

For four decades as a rabbi in a congregational setting, a university setting, and as a volunteer police chaplain, I saw how these issues caused problems and how people often felt so overwhelmed by them that they felt helpless in reconstructing their lives.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the personal crises of the young whose busy social lives have been truncated, and it has been particularly cruel to those in crowded living and working facilities, and to the individuals confined to detention centers.

The reason that my colleagues and I wrote this book was to help people recognize the sources of their problems before they became too big to handle. When handled quickly problems don’t manifest themselves in negative behaviors or consequences. Another purpose was to show how not to lose hope but rather learn from mistakes and avoid repeating them again.

Today our world faces greater challenges then ever before. We do not know if COVID-19 will become a recurring part of our lives or if it will pass on into history. What we do know is that in the words of the Rabbi Tarfon (Second Century), It is not your responsibility to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either (Pirke Avot