In recent months, government and health officials have asked people to isolate themselves from others as much as possible in order to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. My friends and I have willingly complied. 

Still, I’ve wondered, Is there something more I can do? Yes! I can isolate my thoughts from fearful images. In fact, staying inside can’t do much to make me feel protected or even to help others if I’m ruminating over reports regarding causes and symptoms of the disease. As the Christian Science textbook points out, “Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 114). It naturally follows that the cause of disease is mental, not physical. It comes from the belief that existence is material. 

Mrs. Eddy wrote: “Stand porter at the door of thought. . . . When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them. The issues of pain or pleasure must come through mind, and like a watchman forsaking his post, we admit the intruding belief, forgetting that through divine help we can forbid this entrance” (Science and Health, pp. 392–393). To me, this is how we can practice mental self-distancing—keeping our thinking free from beliefs that underlie illness.