It’s very tempting at the moment to be judgemental.

To be judgemental against China.
To be judgemental against laggard politicians.
To be judgemental against hoarders,
or cruise ships,
or landlords,
or those millennials who aren’t taking the current crisis seriously.

I’m sure you have your own personal list.

We’re currently in survival mode. And when we’re in survival mode we lash out at those we believe are threatening us, threatening those we love, threatening our way of life.

We lash out at those that seek to undermine our sense of certitude.
We have shifted into a time of uncertainty.

Everything we took for granted as being certain is now no longer certain. It used to be certain that you could go to the supermarket and buy toilet paper. It used to be certain that you could hold a BBQ in your backyard and invite your friends over. It used to be certain you could hop on a plane and fly wherever you wished to go. It used to be certain that you’d have a job, or have enough money to pay next week’s rent, or have enough food to feed your family.

Nothing is certain anymore.
And we’re going through a range of emotions as a result.

Some of us have gone to denial.
Some have gone to anger.
Some have gone to depression.
Some have gone to blame.
And many of us have gone to judgement.

But what is judgement?

At the heart of judgement is the notion that you are in some way superior to the person or the concept or the institution that you’re judging. That you have superior knowledge, or greater insight or wisdom, or you have some kind of elevated status that gives you the authority to be judgemental.

Implicit in judgement is a lack of humility.
Implicit in judgement is an ego dominated outlook.

When I catch myself being judgemental I try to stand back and ask myself – 
What authority gives me the right to say/think this?
Is this my ego speaking?
Does saying/thinking this lift or lower my vibrations?
Does this come from love or fear?

Now’s not the time to be judgemental. There will never be a time to be judgemental. I am not better or superior to you so I don’t have the authority to judge you.

I am a spark of Spirit, as are you, as is everyone, as is everything.
Within that spark judgement does not exist.

So I was driving to Sydney a little while ago.
I had to go see the dentist.

Already I had two fears –

1) going to the dentist, which is terrifying under normal circumstances, much less during a pandemic, and 2) driving to Sydney, which I saw as being a seething cesspool of nuclear-grade COVID-19 – certainly a way more dangerous place than the small country town of Mudgee which is where I live, four hours drive away.

So I was driving to Sydney, battling my fears.
And there was a truck in front of me on the country highway.
And this truck was kicking up stones.

Then, sure enough, suddenly I heard a CRACK.
A stone had hit my windscreen.

I passed the truck, then I checked the windscreen and, sure enough, I found a mark on the windscreen.

My fears began to run amok.

My windscreen was going to crack.
It was going to shatter.
I would need to get it repaired.

That would mean staying in Sydney because there were no repairers in Mudgee could do the job. And probably the repairer would be asymptomatic COVID-19 and I would get infected. Which means I would die a horrible lonely death because being over 65, I am in a high risk category. But before dying I would infect my beautiful wife and beautiful children and they would die horrible lonely deaths too.

I was a mess.
And I hadn’t even got to the dentist yet.

I stopped in the next town and checked the mark on the windscreen.
It wasn’t cracked – the mark was bird poop.
I scraped it off, washed my hands for 20 seconds, and kept driving.

And I mused at how fear works.

The fear I had was imagined fear. All the fears I had were imagined fears. The visit to the dentist, whilst discomforting for a short while, was painless. Sydney was not full of Walking Dead virus infected super-spreaders. I got in, I got out, I drove home and I didn’t die.

But my mind, left unchecked, had gone to the darkest places. It had been fascinating to watch. The mark on the windscreen hadn’t been the start of my windscreen shattering, it had been bird poop.

There’d been no need for me to slip into fear.
But slip I did.
In fact I tumbled head first.

And it occurred to me that I held other fears that were imaginary too.
And they were bird poop too.
When I examined any fear I had, it turned out to be bird poop.

Here’s what I do with fear:

I look at the worst case scenario, and then I ask myself honestly: Can I deal with that? And invariably, I figure that I can indeed deal with it. And then the fear goes away. I scrape the bird poop off the windscreen.

What’s the worst possible scenario?
That I die.
I’m not scared of dying.
I know that this body is just leased, short term.
And at some point, that lease is going to end.
And then I’ll find another body to lease.

I’d prefer not to spend weeks in a hospital suffering.
I still have work to do.
Watch out soon for an announcement on a resource I’ll be launching –

The Facing Fear Interviews. 

Here’s where my fear took me when I saw that mark on my windscreen –

Are you like me, finding it hard to get a good night’s sleep right now?
In the middle of this unbelievable global attack?
By something that’s not even living? That’s just malicious genetic code?

These are scary times.

Maybe it doesn’t help that before I go to sleep, I read a chapter or two of Stephen King’s The Stand – his epic novel on a plague that brings the world to its knees. Somehow I find this soothing. But that’s me…

Then around about 3am I wake up and I find it hard to get back to sleep.

I’ve tried meditation, I’ve tried mantras, I’ve tried herbal sleeping tablets. None of them have worked.

So then I figured I may as well use the time productively, so lately I’ve been listening to Paul Selig’s latest book on Audible.com – the audiobook app. The book is the seventh in a series that he’s channelled from his Guides. Paul claims no authorship – he says it is purely the work of the Guides.

www.paulselig.com

Paul is the real deal. I’ve read all the books and they’ve had a huge influence on my life. I interviewed Paul for my intuition film, PGS – Intuition is your Personal Guidance System. I also interviewed him for my upcoming film, Facing Fear. He’s become a dear friend.

His latest book, Beyond the Known: Realisation builds on the previous body of work in a profound way. And so I put in my EarPods and I listen to Paul narrate the material – and suddenly everything is put into perspective. Here is a passage I listened to last night:

If you wish to be in fear about the events of the world, pat yourself on the back for claiming fear and don’t complain about being frightened. It is your choice to fear. Now, the world would tell you that you need to be fearful, and, as you acquiesce to that, you join the throngs looking to fight, looking to yield, to conquer, to know itself in the old paradigm that has been claimed as war.

To align to peace simply requires you to know that peace is there, and, in that awareness, you become the emissary of peace. If you are called to fight in some way, and any battle you may see or claim as a fight may be understood still again as an opportunity to learn, you may choose to do so as the True Self, who will bring light and peace and healing to what she encounters, and not more damage, not more rage, and not more calamity.

The Divine Self, while she is not the author of peace, abides in peace and will claim peace by nature of her presence. She may authorize what she sees, but she cannot claim it for another. The independence of the soul requires each one to know who they are in their own way, but what you may do is know the Divine—underline know, it means realize—in anyone, and in doing so you authorize them to make the claim for themselves by nature of your witness.

Sometime later I fall asleep, peacefully, knowing who I am, what I am, how I serve…

For those of you who’ve read my Camino memoir, The Way, My Way,  (which, by the way, now has 297 five star reviews on Amazon. Cheeky plug, I know!) – well, featured prominently in that book were two delightful larger-than-life pilgrims from Northern Italy, Ivan the Terrible and His Beautiful Wife Giovanna.

Ivan and Giovanna helped me greatly during my walk, and we shared many a laugh together. They are hilarious! After the Camino we kept in touch and when Jennifer and I visited Italy a few years back we spent time with them in their home in the glorious ancient city of Bergamo.

I started to worry about them when I heard that Bergamo, in particular, had been savagely devastated by the coronavirus. Here’s a recent news report:

The northern Italian city of Bergamo, which is the nation’s worst-hit by the coronavirus, received help from the military Thursday to transport bodies to nearby towns to be cremated. 

A convoy of at least 10 military trucks arrived in Bergamo, which sits northeast of Milan in the Lombardy region, to pick up coffins from the city crematorium and several morgues overwhelmed by the recent spike of deaths.

Bergamo is the most heavily hit town in Italy by the coronavirus outbreak, recording at least 93 deaths and at least 4,305 cases in the city as of Wednesday.About 60 percent of Bergamo’s roughly 120,000 residents could be infected by the novel virus.

I tried to call Ivan but got no response. But then last night I got this email, replete with wonderful typos and grammaticals:

Hello dears Jennefer and Bill

The situation is really very very bad, moreover Bergamo is the centre of the problem but  at the moment we are very well. 

We are both retired now, so when we came back in Italy we stopped at our home at the Garda Lake. So after 18 days of absolute isolation we stay really well. In this period there are nobody  around our home, once a week we go out to buy food  at the supermarket.

Unfortunately only now the people has understand the gravity of the situation, so we hope it could be better. It is really a nightmare , every day we receive bad news from our relatives and friends about people who is ill or dead.

We followed your blog when the fire devastated your Country. How is the situation now? And about Coronavirus Covid 19?

Thank you very much for your thought . In this moment it is very important to fell the warm of our friends . 

A big hug to Jennifer and you . Giovanna and Ivan

When Ivan’s email came through Jennifer and I breathed a big sigh of relief. They are two very special people, and I hope they stay fit and well.

We’re at war.
We’re under attack in a way that we’ve never seen before, not in our lifetime.
And like any war, we don’t know when it’s going to end.

Unlike any other war though, we don’t know who our enemy is.

Scientists don’t know whether this virus will mutate further, whether it will “reconfigure” to adapt to changed conditions, they don’t know whether it will become less potent as the northern hemisphere comes on summer, they don’t know how long it remains active in a person’s body after that person is “cured.” We don’t know whether there will be a second wave or a third wave…

Let’s face it, we don’t know shit.

All we know is that people are getting sick, people are dying in the most horrendous ways, we know that it’s spreading exponentially, and we know we don’t yet have a cure.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be using a war analogy though because in wartime, we have generals and admirals and commanders that have battle plans and, right or wrong, they put those plans into action decisively and immediately.

Our governments have denied and dithered and they have let us down. Where are the Churchills or the MacArthurs or the Eisenhowers of old? These are the kind of leaders we need in a time of war. Our leaders have revealed themselves to be woefully inadequate to the monumental task of winning this battle. History will judge them accordingly.

These are historic times. And we are fighting for our lives. We are fighting for our survival. If not physically, then financially, and spiritually. Many in this time of crisis are questioning their faith. They’re asking: How can an all-loving, all-compassionate God do this to us That’s a bloody good question, and a valid one to ask. This little bug is bringing us to our knees in every way imaginable.

When our leaders let us down, what can we do? In times of war, the first thing you need is to find out what the fuck is going on. You need to find out as much as you can about your enemy, how it operates, what are its means of attack, what are its likely movements.

1. You need to be informed. But not by hearsay or social media panic – you need to be properly informed. By experts who know what they’re talking about. In battle parlance you need intel. Only with solid reliable intel can you then make plans.
2. You need to make plans. The plans you make will be different to the plans someone else makes. Should you quit or take leave of your job and hunker down? Should you prepare yourself for a siege? Should you go join your elderly parents in the country? Having plans in place will help you remain calm. You need to prepare for the worst but hope for the best.
3. You need to remain calm. You can’t fire a rifle if you’re shaking with fear. Read my previous post on fear. Facing Fear in fearful times ~ Remaining calm is critical to maximising your chances of survival in a time of war. Another critical factor is finding allies. You can’t fight a battle of this magnitude by yourself.
4. You need allies. Allies are your family, your friends, your loved ones. Allies could be your employer, your boss, your neighbour. We will each need to support and help one another if we’re to get through this. The governments talk about social distancing and separation, and that’s one of the insidious things this little bug is trying to do, it’s trying to conquer us through separation and division. And yes we do need to keep ourselves separated physically, and nations do need to separate from other nations for a while, but spiritually we need to come together and unite in our efforts to combat this invasive threat.
5. You need to defend yourself, and those you love. While the scientists are working on a means of attack through the creation of a vaccine, we need to defend ourselves, and those we love. This little bug is attacking us physically and financially. It’s putting us under siege. We need to prepare for a long siege, probably longer than our insipid leaders are telling us right now. This little bug ain’t going away easily. And while ever we lack the means to attack, we must defend – and that means retreating to a safe place and staying behind our battlements.
6. You need to help others. In Australia there’s an iconic World War Two photo of a “digger” – a soldier in Papua New Guinea – helping another injured soldier over a creek. This is what we do in times of war. We help others. The heroes amongst us help others at the risk of their own lives or livelihoods. And already we’ve seen heroes – everyday heroes, such as the doctors and nurses and hospital workers. But also everyday heroes like those that are serving us at the checkouts in supermarkets. The transport workers. Those that are putting themselves at risk every day to keep essential services running.
7. You need to be heroic. Heroic might mean being generous. Giving a neighbour food when they run out. Heroic might mean being compassionate. Looking after someone when they’re dying because they can’t get a bed in a hospital. Heroic might mean taking a financial loss so that your staff have money to pay their rent. You can be a hero in the most unobvious of ways. And true heroes are often invisible. They do their heroic deeds and ask for nothing in return. They are selfless. You can be that hero.

These are extraordinary times. Everything we thought we knew is being reconfigured, rewritten, broken down and will be re-formed anew. This is not a time to be frightened. This is a time to be calm, cool-headed, generous in spirit, and it’s a time to be intuitive. Because faced with a choice, your intuition will guide you towards the best outcome.

Personally, I watch in awe at a world undergoing tectonic change. This little bug, this noxious piece of malignant genetic coding, is forcing us to ask ourselves: What’s really important?

For me, what’s really important is love.
That’s all.
Love.

I’m currently making a film on fear.
Good time for it, right?
I wish it weren’t.

Not too long ago I sat down with Dr. Joe Dispenza to interview him for the film, which by the way is called Facing Fear. We were in Indian Wells, near Palm Springs. He was about to do a huge week long workshop. As we were setting up I mentioned that I’d already done some 30 interviews for the film, and he asked me what had I learned about fear.

It stumped me, that question, because during the past year, speaking to all the luminaries that I have about fear, I’ve learned a lot. But how to encapsulate that in a quick response as Dr Joe is getting miked up –  I couldn’t, really. It’s complex. And I won’t fully understand fear until I finish the film. But here is a potted version of what I’ve learned so far –

There are two types of fear – real fear and imagined fear. Real fear is survival based fear, and it inhabits the body. Imagined fear is illusory based fear, and it inhabits the mind.

Our bodies can’t distinguish between real fear and imagined fear. One of the reasons there’s so much sickness and ill health in our society is because we live too much in imagined fear and the chemical secretions that result damage our biological systems.

So we have this coronavirus and we’re scared.
We’re scared of getting sick.
We’re scared our loved ones will get sick.
We’re scared of losing what we have.
We’re scared of suffering.
We’re scared of dying.
We’re scared someone we love will die.

Ultimately, we’re scared of change.
Because this little bug is causing monumental change.
Tectonic change.
Personally, socially, geo-politically.

So let’s look at the fears associated with this virus. And let’s look at what we can do to mitigate those fears. Let’s consider what we can control. And acknowledge what we can’t control. Let’s consider what’s the worst that can happen. Because one thing I’ve learned about dealing with fear is that we have to look unflinchingly at the worst possible scenario.

We can only deal with fear if we don’t shirk from it – we must face it head on.

What I’ve learned is this: to deal with fear we first have to determine whether the fear is real or imaginary. For instance, our fear of death. The statistics coming through so far indicate that even if you do get infected, the chances that the infection will be mild are very high. And the recovery rate is high. So perhaps your fear of death is an imagined fear.

If you’re elderly and have underlying health conditions, the stats aren’t so good, admittedly. And if you’re a health professional and for whatever reason you’re not fully protected, you’re at high risk. But this raises the next aspect of how to deal with fear –

Look at fear as your friend.

Fear is a friend tapping you on the shoulder saying: Hey, watch out – there could be a tiger in that cave. Once you start looking at fear as your friend you can use it as an early warning system that enables you to plan and make change. And once fear becomes your friend it becomes, well, less fearful.

Fear of going broke?
Look at what you can control, and what you can’t control. You can’t control the stock market, but you can control if you sell or stay. But consider this: fear contracts, hope/love expands. Decisions made in fear now will be decisions you’ll regret later.

The other thing I’ve learned is that there’s no point trying to rid yourself of fear. That’s just not going to happen. But if you find your fear – find out what it really is that you’re afraid of – and then befriend it, and get to know it and hear what it is it’s trying to tell you, then you can use it to make changes in your life.

One of my interviewees said you’ve got to lean-in to fear. In other words, work with it. Get it to work for you, to better your circumstances, and your life.

What’s the best thing to do right now? Raise your vibrations by eating well, exercising, sleeping heaps, taking vitamins, laughing a lot, and meditating.

This little bug is testing us.
It’s asking us to stand up and declare: Who am I, really?

We as individuals, we as communities, we as nations, and we as a species will be defined by how we handle this unprecedented threat to our well being. I for one would like to be defined by my handling it with calm, with dignity, with compassion and generosity of spirit, with a love and deep respect for every human being on this planet – and with grace.

If I can do that then I don’t mind dying…

How did I fare with my predictions?

The Korean film Parasite shocked everyone by winning several major categories – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Film.

It was always going to win Best Foreign Film – but in winning Best Picture it made history by being the first foreign language film to win the top gong.

Most of the Oscar pundits got it wrong – and so within that context I did ok with my predictions. But before I go through my audit I just want to say that I still feel that 1917 should have won Best Picture and Best Director for Sam Mendes.

That said, Parasite is an extraordinary piece of work. It’s exquisitely made, and devastating in its social commentary. And I haven’t seen a film in a long time that uses symbolism and metaphor so powerfully.

So, how did I go with my predictions? Here is my list, detailing what I got right and what I got wrong –

Best Picture
The Irishman
BB: Joker
WRONG – PARASITE

Best Director
Sam Mendes / 1917
BB: Todd Philips / Joker
WRONG – BONG JOON-Ho / PARASITE

Best Actor
Joaquin Phoenix / Joker
BB: Joaquin Phoenix / Joker
RIGHT

Best Actress
Renee Zwelleger / Judy
BB: Scarlett Johansson / JoJo Rabbit
RIGHT

Best Supporting Actor
Brad Pitt / Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
BB: a three way tie between Joe Pesci / The Irishman, Anthony Hopkins / The Two Popes, and Taika Waititi / JoJo Rabbit
RIGHT

Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern / Marriage Story
BB: Charlize Theron / Bombshell
RIGHT

Best Original Screenplay
Quentin Tarantino / Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
BB: Quentin Tarantino / Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
WRONG – BONG JOON-Ho / PARASITE

Best Adapted Screenplay
Taika Waititi / JoJo Rabbit
BB: Anthony McCarten / The Two Popes
RIGHT

Best Foreign Language Film
Parasite
BB: Parasite
RIGHT

Best Cinematography
Roger Deakins / 1917
BB: Lawrence Sher / Joker
RIGHT

Best Film Editing
Ford vs Ferarri
BB: Jeff Groth / Joker
RIGHT

Best Sound Editing:
1917
BB: Ford vs Ferrari
WRONG – FORD vs FERRARI

Best Sound Mixing:
1917
BB: a tie between  Rocketman and Joker
RIGHT

Best Production Design
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
BB: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
RIGHT

Visual Effects
1917
BB: 1917
RIGHT

Original Score
Joker
BB: JokeR
RIGHT

Original Song
I’m gonna Love me Again / Rocketman
BB: I’m gonna Love me Again / Rocketman
RIGHT

Best Costume Design
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
BB: Dolemite is my Name
WRONG / LITTLE WOMEN

Best Makeup & Hair
Bombshell
BB: Dolemite is my Name
RIGHT

Best Documentary
American Factory
BB: Honeyland
RIGHT

Best Animated Feature
Toy Story 4
BB: Frozen 2
RIGHT

So out of 21 categories, I got 16 right. That’s a strike rate of 76%, which given the big upset with Parasite, isn’t too bad.

For instance, according to the Metacritic website, only 23% of expert critics predicted Parasite would win Best Picture, and 17% predicted Bong Joon-ho would win Best Director.

https://www.metacritic.com/feature/predictions-for-who-will-win-2020-oscars

And Scott Feinberg, Oscar expert from the Hollywood Reporter (considered the best Oscar pundit) only got 17 out of the 21 categories – one more than me. So I didn’t do too badly this year.

What a great year for movies though! One of the best for a long time.

Parasite