We romanticize the Phoenix, legendary mythical creature that rises from the ashes. We envision feathers and flames of fire as it soars above the rubble of it’s own destruction in triumph. It is the quintessential story of overcoming adversity. It speaks of resilience.

It is all of that AND, the Phoenix dies. It soars up to new amazing heights. It enjoys the feeling of flight, exaltation and the knowing it is being all it is meant to be. From this extreme height it enjoys freedom and the expansive view; everything feels and is possible. Then crashes and burns. It is obliterated, incinerated in the flames of it is own passion fire.

In the place where it crashed and died, its ashes seed and nourish the soil becoming compost for a new Phoenix to emerge and rise. As powerful as this story is for us to embody, we can gloss over the death process that proceeds the next rising. We can also believe that once we step into our power and fly that it is a once and done, but often it is a cyclical experience like that of the Phoenix.

A few weeks ago, the story of the Phoenix came to me during a massage. I instantly understood, this was my story, the story of the last 2 years. I have been sitting in the ashes, the rubble of my old life; sifting, sorting, grieving, processing, releasing, accepting and allowing something new to take shape.

In 2020, everything changed. Now in 2023, things are back to “normal”, but are they? I don’t think so, we will never be the same, too much has happened and changed. This is true for me, perhaps especially for me as my personal life events aligned with such an historic event as the Covid pandemic. Collectively, I believe we are experiencing a global shift of consciousness which has us experiencing change at a pace that can feel intense. Perhaps there are many who are experiencing the Phoenix mythology working in their life. Stories often hold symbols and guideposts to help us navigate our own personal stories. Phoenix is such a story that shows us the pattern of metamorphosis; birth, life, death cycle and resilience building.

The idea of the Phoenix came to me once before, toward the end of my divorce in 2017. It was calling me to rise over my fear and circumstances and rise I did. By the time 2020 came I was soaring. My capacity and confidence had increased. I sensed it was time to leap and fly into my dreams and destiny. I felt I was ready to soar to new heights. As I write this now, I realize that I had been flying the entire time. I was learning to use my wings, find my freedom and fly in ways that I had not before. What I could not see was that I might crash.

I wanted to live in S. Korea. For some unknown reason, Korea had been calling to me. I fell in love with the language, culture, food and people. I felt a deep knowing inside me that it was my home. I  met a man there and over time developed a relationship with him. He and I were so alike; I deeply loved and wanted a life with him. In 2019, I decided to establish and online business that would allow me to travel freely and eventually move abroad.

I will share a brief summary of my journey for context, but the juice is in the lesson of the Phoenix and the emotional journey I experienced.

In July 2020, I moved away from all I had invested my heart and soul into for decades; children, community, family, friends and successful business. I felt it in my bones; it was time. I gathered all my courage and leapt. It was glorious! I achieved inner heights and experiences that I only imagined.

I drove across the United States with a close, fun and powerful friend. Saw the Grand Canyon and Sedona for the first time. Visited a high school friend in Montana and landed in Washington state to live with a girlfriend while trying to figure the rest out. This trip in the midst of pandemic was heroic, glorious, filled with laughter and magic. I was on fire and soaring high.  It was exhilarating! I could feel my power. I felt I had stepped into who I am and that everything would unfold exactly as I imagined. 

Shortly, after my move, I partnered with a dear friend to start a new online business that lit me up, Love Wave, it was going to be big! It was all happening. I had come so far and felt the pieces falling into place.

Yet, it was a rough and rocky flight. I was struggling with a sense of loss of all I had left behind. I was grieving, but was determined not to give up on my dreams. It was a time of mixture. First flights out of the nest are never smooth. In many ways, I had flown at home with a safety net, this was the first time I was flying untethered.

In the spring of 2021, I went to S. Korea for a trial run of living there for 3 months. Due to Covid, it required me to be in government quarantine for two weeks, which was an adventure all of its own that I was excited to experience. During this time I was eagerly waiting to see my boyfriend. I posted my experiences daily to share with the world. I felt the full support of friends, family and my children. Everyone was with me on this ride.

In my mind, this trip was going to see whether or not we would have a future together. I could not imagine that we didn’t. There were too many moments, memories and promises. Sadly, my hopes were too high. On the second day of our time together, he wrote me a long message, “let’s be friends”. To say I was shocked and devastated would be a gross understatement.

This moment activated my worst trauma; my relinquishment at two days old. It mirrored the first event so closely that I had very intense physiological response and emotional flashbacks throughout the rest of my time there.

There we moments when the loss and pain was so visceral and real that honestly, I felt I might die. There were days when I would wake up, stand and fall down or times that I would start vomiting. This is graphic, but this is what happened. It was this event that showed me how intense the experience was for me as an infant, but I was having difficulty differentiating what was a flashback and what was heartbreak. I honestly had moments where I felt I was losing my sanity. 

At the same time, I was in KOREA, so I was thrilled. I determined to do my best. I did not want  to allow what was happening in my relationship to ruin my 3 month trip. I consciously made choices to do things that made me feel good. Consequently, I experienced a push and pull between two emotional extremes that were wrestling for space inside me. I experienced super exhilarating highs and deep dark devastating lows.

My desire to live there had not changed, so not only was I faced with the loss of my relationship, but also with the loss of living where I wanted to live. I was grieving the loss of heart and home .Yes, there were moments when I wished for sleep to overtake me and to never wake.

One of the things that kept me grounded during this experience was my business, Love Wave. Deep within me, I wanted to impart Love consciousness to the world. It was a truth that I wholeheartedly believed would make a long lasting impact on the world for the better. I decided that Love Wave would be my anchor. I would use Venus | Aphrodite as my symbolic anchor to remain, I would endure and heal so that I could build Love Wave and see the far reaching power of Love on the planet. I felt it so strongly when I was in Korea; I had no inkling that it too would not come to be.

This was my process of dying to my trauma bound identity. Who I identified with and had been intimately linked with my trauma for my entire life. As an adoptee, I had no formed personality before my trauma to refer back to. It was this series of events that would destroy that identity completely. I  saw how I could choose differently, I could choose happiness and I was doing it. It was unsteady, but I was doing it. I was being stretched to new levels of raising my frequency in the midst of challenge.

It was in Korea that I realized that Life wanted me. Life wanted me here. Life invited me to the party. I began talking and relating to Life, seeing this dynamic between me and Life. Life had been wanting me to engage with “it”. Life was inside of me, outside of me, all knowing, all, in all things, through all things, and everywhere at all at once. . This brought a subtle shift in my understanding. Instead of Divine, Source, Universe, Spirit, God, Love; I began calling “it” Life.

I came home a new person. The Seed of Home had been planted in me in Korea, but I was not aware of it until a few months later.

I had been planning on writing a book, a memoir for years and suddenly, I knew it’s title and had a sense of it. I wanted to write a program to go along with the book based on finding a felt sense of safety to be yourself in the world. This is what happened for me in Korea. I chose myself. I decided to live and to not abandon myself ever again. I learned that I can create a felt sense of safety for myself, that it needed to begin at home inside me.

I arrived broken and determined, but shortly after I got home I realized I could not continue to interact as I used to. I started setting new boundaries and speaking up for myself in ways had not previously. The intention and energy I created things with mattered. Love Wave started to disentigrate. I lost my love, my place and now my business.

There are two life events that changed who I was forever; my adoption and my time in Korea in 2021. Who I was before my relinquishment will never be again, The woman I was before Korea does not exist, she is gone. When I talk now it is always me before Korea and after. It changed me irrevocably.

When everything crashes and burns, we are left sitting in the ashes. The void state. Womb state. Nothing and yet, it is the place of all possibility.  It is the place where old feelings and patterns arise to be seen, but now you have this recent experience from which to gain perspective. You hit pause. You sit with the lessons, integrating the new into your cells and bones. You sit in this dark unknown state until it is time to move again. Your body will tell you. You will feel the nudge.

For me, in recent months, I have kept getting nudges; the words emerge and metamorphosis, butterfly symbolism. Feathers keep appearing before me on my walks. I gather them up and thank Life for their message to me, “Prepare for flight. It is time to rise again.”  Resilient, a word I used to hate, I am now ready to embody with love. I am resilient and that feels good. It tells me I can trust myself no matter what happens. I can stay true and even if I fail and fall again, I now know the pattern of the Phoenix.  I feel my wings beginning to stretch out and ruffle, preparing for flight

Although the memory of the crashing is embedded in my body memory and I feel terrified at times, I take small steps because I know the joy of the flight ahead. Often out of sight I take a step because this last tumble to the ground was so public. It tapped into my deeply rooted shame, “I am not enough, who do I think I am?”. Shame that I was not able to feel or acknowledge until I was in Korea in 2021. This trip unlocked my deepest fears, loss and grief. I knew it was there, seeping out from time to time, this was the opening of Pandora’s Box there is no going back, pushing it back down or being who I was before.

I emerged as myself, I am no longer entangled with the wounded infant inside me. I love her. I let her have her voice. I parent her and she now knows, I am all she has. She no longer imagine a white knight saving her, it is me and I am far from a knight in shining armor, but I love her fiercely and understand her like no one else can.

Now, that I am emerging and preparing for flight,  I am learning to differentiate, myself from my trauma responses. I am following my heart . Each choice is more conscious and aware than before. Who and what are in my life because I want them to be. I am intentionally setting forth new vision and dream of my life. It is more vague, less about how it looks and more about how it feels. How I feel and interact with Life is my litmus. It has become imperative that I be true to my essence, even if it is scary, difficult or challenging.

Before Korea, I felt so strong and certain. Now, I feel less confident, but I know this; I will fly again and it will be to new wondrous heights. I believe with each flight, the Phoenix carries within its DNA the lessons of the previous Phoenix. My flight will be more steady and I will light up the sky like only I can, because I am the Phoenix, and I am flying the path that only I can fly. I will fly or burn; or both.