To those who thrived during the Pandemic: what’s next?
This is for all of you who did something amazing in the last year and a half. Something that brought you more fully alive. And now — what?
The New York Times and other media outlets would tell you that coming back to “normal” is great. That it is what we have all been yearning for. I have no doubt that for many, that is true. And for everyone who has children at home (I do not), I very much hope that you either have already or will soon get a chance for greater rest as more forms of camps, in-person school, etc. are more possible than they have been.
For everyone who did a massive pivot at the beginning of the pandemic, re-imagined their work, and created something extraordinary that has been served many people in this strange time out of time…. If you are one of them, this piece is for you.
As delighted as I am about the return of hugs and indoor seating at restaurants and especially (gasp) dancing with other human beings who are not on a screen, I have also been looking at this reopening with one eye brow raised. What does this new reality mean?
I am one of those people who pivoted my business over a year ago and found a new rhythm that works. My business — a combination of teaching online courses on ReMembering and ReEnchanting, coaching/healing sessions, and growing an international community of cultural change crafters— more than doubled and my audience more than tripled between May 2020 and May 2021. I now have a far more diverse set of international colleagues and clients whose questions, ideas and potential collaborations are well-suited to my skill set.
I know I’m not alone. We don’t talk about it that much because so many people have been suffering, and it sometimes feels odd to share these kinds of stories of relative success when the world is turned upside down. I certainly am not a fan of forced social isolation and I am overjoyed that my mother is finally, finally able to spend time with her friends again. And. And and and.
And many of us have been honing our skills for various forms of apocalypses for years.
Many of my students and clients pivoted and found ways to thrive. They significantly grew their businesses, using online spaces to reach people in places they never would have met before. Some spent the first few months listening to the client-base and subsequently re-designed the entire structure of their work, creating new offerings that more accurately met the new-found needs. Some left jobs that were not a good fit — the increase in unemployment benefits gave some people the security they needed to shift into a different line of work, one far more aligned with their values. Many of my students found themselves taking on leadership in social justice issues within their institution that they never would have done prior to Pandemic x BLM. I teach on the intersections of the histories of climate change, colonization and emerging eco-spiritualities: the Pandemic x BLM enabled a level of self-reflection and a willingness towards increased truthfulness that I have not before seen.
For many whose bodies or brains were exhausted at the start of the Pandemic — perhaps due to chronic physical pain, perhaps due to neurological divergences — the shift to online engagements has been an immense relief.
I haven’t seen data on this, but I’ve heard dozens of antidotes of people with various forms of “disabilities” who were immensely relieved to not have the expectations of engaging with “normal society.”
Indeed, for many change-makers were able to develop or strengthen online services or hyper-local community services as safe as possible, the last period of time has been an immensely generative one. Many of these people have always known that society was “upside down” to begin with, and the abrupt change affirmed their pre-existing worldviews.
This was not only a phenomenon for those whose work has always been online. Demand for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) has skyrocketed as more people sought to have fresh, healthy food delivered at home. Many in the alternative health spaces (though not hands-on workers such as massage therapists) found themselves being listened to in new ways. How many gardens were planted? How many children planted seeds at home, placing them on the windowsill? Traveled, moved, transformed, and in so many ways thrived in a world turned upside down?
There are always those of us who are well-suited for the moments when the world goes tipsy-turvy. We are the ones who sometimes, when the world is “right way up,” wonder if we ourselves are upside down. We are not particularly surprised by apocalypses.
So many people — maybe you — were immensely, immeasurably creative in your personal and professional life. You found new ways of doing things. Maybe they were better suited for you than the old ways. You helped others. Held space. Listened to people grieve on the phone or zoom over the lack of in-person funerals when their loved ones were dying. Experimented with the limitations of zoom calls and found new facilitation practices that blew away people like me, who have been working on zoom for years. Read that poetry book that has been sitting on your shelf and then started bringing poetry into the workplace. Had bold and courageous conversations with people you’ve never talked to before. Helped other people build community and find a different sense of belonging at a time when both were sorely lacking.
You did something amazing.
And now —
What now?
Are people suddenly no longer interested in what you just spent months creating online, now that there is less overt need to zoom?
Or perhaps you are recognizing that whatever strategies you compiled together, they are no longer going to be as needed.
Most likely, if you have children at home, this has been an overwhelming time… but perhaps you found new ways of working.
Maybe you are relieved. Maybe you are sad. Maybe you are exhausted. Afterall, you just did a lot of re-imagining and re-creating. You were in action in incredible ways.
So now what?
1. First: Well done!
I hope you’ve been able to be proud of yourself for your capacity to pivot and to create something different; to experiment and to be of service to different people who needed it. I hope you can really own your skills in dealing with uncertainty. Your capacity as a creative being. And maybe you recognize some parts of your privilege that you might have been less aware of before — many creative people did not have the means (ex. good wifi) or the skill sets to pivot so well. Perhaps their time is also coming.
2. We aren’t actually going “back”.
The phrase “return to normal” is impossible, given a) how many people’s lives have significantly changed, and, b) that you can not, actually, go back in time.
Part of what I think we are trying to indicate when we say we are “returning to what was” is that we are returning to social-ness. A lessening of “apart, together.” Perhaps we will ‘go back’ to “together, apart” — what social critics have long bemoaned as the isolation tendencies of American society. If the pre-pandemic version of “normal” was not so great for you, don’t assume the post-pandemic (at least in the United States) version of “normal” will be whatever normal was.
3. More challenges are on their way.
In no way did the global society as a whole use this “time away” to do some kind of mass retreat and reflection on what are our real values and how do we want to share our scarce resources more equitably. There are some signs of a greener economy, and plenty of rhetoric around “build back better” but the global collective has not actually “come together.” If anything, many divisions are stronger — especially class/economic divisions and those centering around identity. Over a year of intense engagement with social media may have increased people’s global connections (I now have many more clients and friends in Europe and New Zealand than I used to, as well as many new people in my neighborhood), but they have tended to increase the sound of the echo chamber. That’s not good conditions for either peace or sustainability. So if you are one of those people that thrive in a crisis — fear not. More are coming.
4. Start with the exhale.
You just did something big. You might not even know, really, what you “did:” it might take a year or two to process what you just went through — and the myriad of diverse experiences that other people around have had. Give yourself permission to pause. If you can do a ritual — I’m strongly advocating embodied circular time rituals that help our bodies and our spirits learn from and release the last year or so — do so.
And then there is the need to grieve. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t lost someone — whether to COVID or other reasons — and who is didn’t get to do a proper funeral or have time to grieve.
Some of us need some cave time — even if it is spring/summer time.
As we re-open, give yourself some time to empty yourself. What was, was. How much can you let go of right now?
5. Remember: not knowing is your strength
Remember in those first few weeks of the pandemic when no one knew what was going on? That’s actually where we are now. Again. People don’t know what’s going on. They don’t know what this re-entry will or should look like. They don’t know what they will need.
The difference is that in 2020, we knew we didn’t know. You could hardly go a day without hearing someone talk about how, “we don’t know.” For a society built on technological advancement, not-knowing is a big deal. For those used to detailed plans that they could rely upon, it was terrifying. For those of us who do well with emergence, it was a relief to have other people echo what we have always known: we don’t know. It seems that the illusion of knowing what is coming has not yet fully returned. But I’m feeling a return of that pressure towards certainty.
You now know (maybe you always did) that it is not only ok to not know, but that not knowing is one of the best approaches to creating what is actually needed in a particular moment.
We don’t know what this “new” social-ness will or should look like. What does this not-knowing invite?
6. Listen
The most successful people I know — the ones who created something from almost nothing — in 2020 were the ones who either a) already had businesses that were uniquely positioned to take advantage of that particular confluences which was a bit of chance, or b) paused and did a LOT of listening — to their peers, their clients, their inner guidance, nature, and to people who were in some way different than they were. From that listening came new creations.
That basic truism is still present.
And perhaps — I hope! — you’ve increased and diversified your forms of listening. Your art. Your time crafting. Your walking. Your time in the woods. Your time with your children. Your time in meditation. Your time cooking. Your time making love. There are many forms of listening. Whichever ones have been most generative — keep them up. Maybe they will also shift (more time in a community choir?). But those deeper wellsprings matter. Just as much now as they have for the past period of time. So keep returning to them.
7. Your creative powers are needed now (again)
Yes, you will, most likely, need to create something different for this new moment. You know that you can. You might need a different strategy. You might need a different set of companions, or a different set up. You might need to create a new set of boundaries for yourself — especially if your body can’t do the in-person work that many people now want. What made that last creative turn around really work for you?
And let’s be real about the larger social conditions that make creative turn-arounds possible, especially for small-scale entrepreneurs and those working in service to their communities. Not only was there a collective awareness of not-knowing, which gave room for a wider and in many cases deeper listening in the early stages of the Pandemic, but there was a basic set of societal support. Namely: evictions were frozen, unemployment increased and healthcare continued. There is now an understandable pressure to get people off unemployment. But these safety measures should be continued to enable all of us the flexibility we need to be creative and to serve our communities. We need to continue to advocate for those safety measures which support transitions at both personal and collective levels including universal basic income, universal healthcare and strong tenant rights.
More storms are coming. Don’t get too attached to what you did or what you might create next. Stay nimble. You’ve learned a lot in the last period of time (it still seems like a time out of time). Don’t slip into the morass of forgetting. And do enjoy whatever parts of this re-socializing you’ve been most yearning for!
