20 Reasons for Gratitude during the Pandemic

Unless you are working for an essential service provider or are a health worker, you have officially been given complete permission from your government, your boss, and all other authorities to make yourself a priority. When does this EVER happen? Don't blow this (likely) once in a lifetime opportunity to just be and do you!

You now have total freedom to step out of the hustle and take care of yourself in the ways you've been fantasizing about for years. In case you've been so deep in the hustle that you can no longer remember what those things are, here are some ideas.

1. Rock your bathrobe and pajama pants 24/7.

2. Not style your hair or put on makeup.

3. Sleep in and take 2 hour naps.

4. Make beautiful, delicious meals that take longer than 15 minutes. Try those yummy online recipes you've been collecting.

5. Did I say sleep?

6. Thanks to all the sleep, you now have the energy for lots of good sex.

7. Sit outside for hours listening to the birds. If you live in a cold climate, gear up! Enjoy the peace and stillness winter offers.

8. Meditate for more than 10 minutes.

9. Take long walks. Smile and wave to your neighbors.

10. Turn the music up and dance around in your pj's.

11. Find a fun exercise or yoga class on YouTube and get in shape.

12. Deep clean.

13. Get rid of stuff.

14. Binge watch all the movies and all the shows.

15. Zoom for hours with everyone you love but don't normally have time for.

16. Receive all the love your neglected pet has been dying to give you for years.

17. For those of you who are sheltering with partners or family members, you now have the time to really get to know and understand them. This is an opportunity to create and experience deeper levels of intimacy and connection with those you care about (and practice all those communication tips you've been reading about).

18. Get creative. Start writing that book or screenplay. Take an online art course. Learn to play guitar or the Irish tin whistle on YouTube.

19. Feel all your feelings. There's A LOT coming up for everyone right now. This virus has triggered many of our core wounds. It's intense and whatever you are feeling (grief, rage, anxiety, fear, loneliness...) is normal. This is a rare opportunity to reflect on how you're feeling and why. It's also a great time to ask yourself what in your life is lighting you up and what is draining you.

If it's really intense, many therapists are available remotely to help. You can also join an online support group.

20. Start a new business you are much more inspired and excited about than your current job.

Global Trauma or Initiation

Author and grief expert Francis Weller told me once, "Trauma can become initiation if we don't get stuck in the trauma, but complete the cycle, coming full circle back into full participation with the world and in service to others." Right now we are being forged. Some will be traumatized by it, but all of us will be offered the same invitation to be initiated by it.

I believe the Anima Mundi (Soul of the world) is initiating us out of our perpetual adolescence. We have lost the cultural knowledge to initiate ourselves. Our Elders have been tossed aside. Eternal youth is glorified. Even our Elders are grasping at how to mimic the youth. Our culture has become a fun house of illusion where very little is what it seems. We look to the most inexperienced or grandiose to guide us. Humanity has gotten turned upside down.

I believe there is an intelligence that seeks to help humanity course correct and come back into balance. There is a natural order that has existed for billions of years, but in the short period of a couple hundred years, we have replaced it with systems that have desacralized both community and nature. Holding these two core things sacred is what has kept humanity and this earth in balance for so long. Our new "modern/civilized" systems seek only power and profit and pit us against each other in competition. We are now seeing what happens when we have a global pandemic spread among already disconnected communities. Ironically though, I see immense potential for this forced containment to bring us back into right relationship with ourselves, each other and our earth. If we pay attention.

In alchemy, a container is a very potent thing. It's where, under the right conditions, total transformation is possible (transmuting base metal into gold). We are being forged in an alchemical container. How each of us chooses to deal with it will make all the difference. Heat is necessary to transmute the base metal, but too little or too much heat will produce poor results. The size of the container also matters. We need to choose the conditions wisely. What conditions are we going to submit to at this time? How much heat and pressure will you allow? What needs to be burned away? What within you is ready to transform and what is in deep resistance to change? At this time we can choose to go into denial, or put our heads in the sand with countless distractions to choose from, or numb out with substances. We can also choose to accept what is happening and surrender to a larger intelligence at work. We can certainly admit that we don't have a lot of control right now. What we do have control over is how we are going to use this time, and what conditions we will apply to our individual alchemical containers.

This Initiation has great potential to elevate us as a global population out of the adolescent, narcissistic mindset of "everyone for themselves" and to realize that we are all in this global container together. I believe that is one of the important messages of the corona virus and the war in Ukraine-- that we can't escape each other. When some of us get sick, all of us can get sick. When some countries go to war, we all feel the death and devastation. We can't go on living in our self serving bubbles. We are interconnected and interdependent on each other and with this planet we live on. There is a very unhealthy level of individualism in the West and the Unites States in particular. It has deeply divided us, pitted us against each other, and sown hatred between us. It is the result of allowing those in power to manipulate the adolescent aspects of our psyches for profit-- to activate our inner child, making us insecure, fearful, and distrusting of each other. It's all been in the name of making money, for a few. It can't continue.

The Animal Mundi will continue to initiate us with natural disasters, extreme weather, pandemics, shortages, etc., until we pass.

The thing about initiation is that you are never the same afterward. The questions for us all to be asking are, who do I want to be when I step out on the other side? Do I want to be the same, or slightly more armored and defensive, or someone who surrendered to what was being asked and has undergone something transformative, life affirming and who is stronger, wiser and more loving for it? Am I willing to be with my fear AND courageously allow my heart to break open to receive what is being asked of me at this time? Most importantly, am I willing and ready to join collectively with other shattered hearts to create new systems that make community and nature paramount and sacred once again?

If we choose the latter and accept the Anima Mundi's invitation, then it is time to become the Alchemist. How will you regulate the heat and pressure being applied during this period of containment and what inside you will you allow to die for your own transformation?