Vulnerability and Courage: The Virtues for Spiritual Healing in Pandemic Time

Abstract

This covid-19 pandemic has the shut doors of opportunities, relationships, openness, community living, optimistic thoughts, health, humanity, safety, etc., for many people all over the world. People have started to heap ideas for their very own self-preservation. Pandemic had its impact not only on people’s physiological health but also on the way a person functions, comprising of emotional, social, mental, psychological, cultural, and especially spiritual. Spirituality is often overlapped with religiosity, vividly losing its meaning during the time of the pandemic. People believed, spirituality is always to believe in a higher power, but the core understanding of real spirituality is to show one’s love for one’s neighbor, especially to those who are in need. It means to direct one’s life of service towards a vision of contributing to others, valuing one’s importance in existence, finding and lending ways to make one and others happy respectively, analyzing the purpose and meaning of one’s life. Many had the courage to engage in communal service as well. But pandemic compelled people to a battle between personal solitude and communal service. This article enlightens spiritual healing as a panacea to the people affected during pandemic time and the role of spirituality and health in the field of psychiatric social work.