The Post Pandemic Phoenix: Rising with Resiliency from the Ashes of the Past Year
In January 2019, many of us couldn’t fathom a virtual world with a global shutdown due to a pandemic. Now in May 2021, we have opened the door to new possibilities forged in our resilience through seemingly impossible circumstances. Our resiliency to endure a global pandemic allows us space to conceptualize a new future for ourselves as individuals and as a collective. Using the mythology of the phoenix and the wisdom of mother nature, we can look at wake of the fire, and the way in which ashes give birth to new incarnations of our experiences. We can harness our power of creation to generate a new future.
Fire is a powerful alchemist. In the wild, controlled forest burns help release trapped nutrients in seeds, nourishing the soil through ashes of burned compost. Something seemingly so destructive can ultimately lead to new growth and strength. Many trees have an incredible resistance to fire, even benefiting from it. Returning to a post pandemic world does not have to mean returning to normal, but rather yielding to the ashes of former realities and having the courage to tap into the seeds released in the fire, rising as a phoenix. What is your life calling you to create after the pandemic? This is a question I invite you to consider, and nature might have some guidance for us.
Many of my clients are grappling with what happens next after the pandemic—a question I am walking with as well. Prior to 2020, my practice had slid into a comfortable stagnation of seeing clients for long days within the confines of an office space. Despite having a strong connection to yoga and mindfulness, I found myself not moving physically as much throughout the day and feeling resistance to wanting to go into the office. The pandemic gave me permission to break free from the spell of standard therapeutic practice, habits, and expectations.
Every incarnation of what I do has been born in and of itself. From being an advocate, to a doula, to a yoga therapist, to an energy worker, to a hypnotherapist, to a clinical social worker. The healing is woven into itself. I can speak to moms with grace because I’ve attended many births. I can be with those going through spiritual crisis because I have walked that fire.
In traditional therapy, healing often occurs within the walls of an office space, that I have curated. In nature, we are equally experiencing a natural state and allowing ourselves to be moved by the experiences around us.
For years, I had dreamt of being able to offer wilderness therapy with clients, but instead I yielded to common practice, boxed into four walls of a traditional office. As the pandemic hit, I shifted to adapt, weaving in resiliency and creativity to try meeting clients to walk nature trails instead of sitting across from each other on a couch. It is something that would have taken years for me to get the courage to do, and it happened over the course of months by adapting to circumstances, rising as a phoenix does. Our ancestors, and fellow animals on this planet, walk together in herds to create safety. Sitting across from someone on a couch, telling them your most intimate parts of your life, while making eye contact, is not particularly normal, when we take into account our evolution as a species. So why is it the default in our clinical practice?
Walking together with individuals through trauma, grief, and transformation has led me towards patterns that are more sustainable and human than ever before. Globally experiencing a pandemic has the potential to deepen our connection to ourselves on an individual and collective level. To walk with a client is to be human together. It is honest to walk through the fire together as humans. I strive to release the role playing of what being a “good” therapist means, and to deepen my ability to be more present, authentic, and attuned to each individual that I have the privilege of walking with into their fire.
Most of my clients have shared that they want to continue with walk and talk sessions after the pandemic ends. We have shared moments of hawks flying over us, seeing dead animals on the trail, being bitten by mosquitos, tripping over roots, and laughing at squirrels. As we literally and metaphorically walked through the pandemic together, I have come to recognize in myself and my clients a rising up of the phoenix. A fundamental tenant of Buddhism is there is dukkha, there is suffering. For a phoenix to emerge, there must be ashes. This is not our end, but rather our beginning. To be born a phoenix is to open to your most authentic self, and to have the courage to continue to live in that honesty even when the fire has long since gone out.
A phoenix is our truest self, only be born repeatedly in ashes. Over identifying with the ashes of former realities can keep us stuck. The phoenix invites us to look outside the box and visualize an extraordinary life born from the dust of our previous ways of being.
A phoenix is authentic. To be human first, then a therapist, teacher, parent or any other archetype empowers us to deepen connection with the world around us. Navigating similar quandaries as my clients in the same ashes of the pandemic led to more self-disclosure and vulnerability, allowing for a deeper humanity to emerge.
A phoenix cannot return to ashes. Making meaning of a tragedy can be a powerful way to move through grief and trauma, especially if we allow space for pain to be a catalyst for transformation and alchemy.
