Years before I lost my husband, Stephen, to colon cancer, I fell in love with the symbol of the phoenix—the fire bird that rises majestically from the ashes of its own destruction.
The first year after Stephen was gone, I claimed it as the symbol of my own resurrection. I needed all the inspiration I could get because it certainly felt as if my world had been reduced to just so much charred debris.
The majesty came later, though. The first four months I acted a lot more like a road runner. Scurrying hither and yon. Planning Stephen's memorial service. Completing all the legal matters of being a widow. Remodeling the entire second floor of my town home so I could bear to live there. Staining what seemed like miles of dark trim, painting walls, selecting bathroom fixtures and carpet. Oh, and writing the first draft of my book.
I was the poster child of bereavement burn-out and in February, 2009 I crashed hard. One Sunday morning I woke up unable to move. That day I was forced to find a new home for my gorgeous black standard poodle–who was just too much dog for me. And I plunged all the way to the bottom of a broken heart.
That day I also stopped holding on to the past, and that's when I began to understand the phoenix. Because the fire bird really does die. It's not pretend. She allows herself to be completely consumed by the purifying flame of loss—and I'm not sure she ever knows for certain that she will rise again. If she did know, the whole process would be a fraud. And it's not; it's for real.
No, I think that moment when the fire kindles and the phoenix bursts forth is as astonishing to her as it is to those who witness her rebirth. We want to believe in a resurrection after loss, but until we experience it personally, that in-between space that William Bridges calls "The Neutral Zone" can feel like a very long, dark night.
So how does one go from being a road runner to a phoenix? For me, it has been a kind of oscillation between frantic searching for direction and patient resting in the flame that continues to send me deeper and deeper into the fertile darkness of my own soul.
The Las Cruces Road Runner
Of course, the road runner has his place because he covers a lot of territory quickly—in my case, seeking people to
collaborate with and places to speak about my experience with the dying process. It has been a sort of scattershot approach—giving the universe lots of opportunity to create the serendipitous connections that are finally happening in my life.
And the road runner has been a good teacher. I have had to admit that I just don't have the energy I once did. I had to give myself permission to say "no"—even to activities that had seemed like a good idea when I planned them. I got very clear about what energizes me. And I built the foundation from which a phoenix could rise.
One of the smartest things I did was to go back to school for a masters' degree in Transpersonal Psychology. I wasn't so much interested in the degree as I was in the curriculum. I needed a program of study with accountability and timelines that would hold my toes to the fire of deep introspection.
And it worked. During the first year I plumbed depths of mind, spirit, and body I never knew existed. I discovered a passion for somatic grief work, and I did more quality writing than I had ever accomplished in such a short period of time.
Up from the Rejuvenating Fires
It was exhilarating, rejuvenating, creative, and ultimately transformative. At the end of the term, I was bursting with ideas of how my work could help other people—even as renewed passion for life was filling my heart with a joy I hadn't felt in years.
I also discovered that in order to emerge from bereavement burn-out I had to allow some very old patterns to be burned up. Somewhere in the collapse of 2009 I reached a point of humility and surrender that allowed Spirit to help me. Until then, I was holding on too tightly to the only thing I knew to do—which was to work and work and work some more.
Just to be clear—I do not recommend burn-out as a personal growth strategy. But I do recommend allowing the process of abject grief to carry you to that place of total vulnerability where you stop trying with your stubborn human might to control the circumstance of your life and sorrow. Because at the very bottom point when you feel completely lost, the great cosmic burner ignites and a new phoenix bird emerges from the bitter ashes of disappointment and hopelessness.
I still have my road runner days. Sometimes they are unavoidable—or at least that's my excuse. But I'm better now at recognizing when I start getting frantic and too tired to be effective. It's then that I take off my running shoes and rest in the soul fires that are now my point of recreation.
I know that too much busy work and not enough writing exhausts me. I get cranky when I haven't dipped into that space of creative connection that feeds my soul through words. So I just say "no" to the junk mail of life and "yes" to the deep place where I am most at home with my authentic self. I still grieve the profound losses of my life but I feel less and less inclined to burn out in the process.
What I cherish is the opportunity, when it calls, to catch fire in the soul creativity that sends this phoenix soaring. She is a very happy bird.
