Do You Have What it Takes to Push Up Through the Earth and Bloom Again?

It is no secret these days many of us feel as though the wheels are falling off around us. And by definition, they are.

We are facing some deep life challenges; loss of income, homes, savings and our overall basic sense of security. These economic chronicles have become like a broken record, the same story repeated over and over while we're all forced to listen, collectively as a nation.

Friends and family are suffering right on front of my very eyes; my oldest friend is a single father of two and has packed up and moved his kids twice within the past sixty days to figure out where makes the most cost effective sense, while he waits to see if he is going to lose a major real estate property he built from ground up. Another friend's father is dying of cancer and his mom is spiraling deep into her alcoholism to cope, while another is wondering how to deal with their mother's job loss, possible condo foreclosure, her depression and prescription drug addiction. More than one person I know is in the middle of contemplating bankruptcy, seven friends have been laid off and counting. It's an emotional epidemic roller coaster.

For others, after all the bills and refinancing roulette, pulling your kids out of pre school and cutting corners and coupons, it seems we haven't only lost our income, but we've lost our spiritual sense of self. And more so, I think we've lost the will and energy to even muster up a weak version of "Hey, chin up. It's going to be okay." We're no longer feelin' it.

Depression is upon us, silently seeping into our spirits, dissention among couples, fighting mostly about finances. We're all edgy irritable, stressed and not very much fun anymore, are we? We're pretty much spiritually exhausted.

I'm an entrepreneur, which means by nature I am a survivor, and this can be said in my personal life as well. I have lost more than most and along the way, and it is within crisis I have actually gained a true sense of who I am and how I show up and try my best to kick some major ass in this world.

I run a boutique PR firm and a creative international art collective that helps youth in underdeveloped countries. I am an aunt, a sister, a BFF, a girlfriend, a daughter, an author, artist and an expert in my field. I have a lot of responsibility to my friends and family, my own creativity as well as my clients to show up and be sparkly.

Sparkly? Good luck people, I'm lucky if I put a clean bra on these days. And the will to be creative? That concept lives as far as Iceland right now.

In the past, when numbers were down, I would see it as an interesting challenge, pull up my straps, have a good cup of strong delicious Peets coffee and work my magic. I always came out with new business fluttering our way. Most times brought in a little too much business. Oh, and I forgot to be grateful during those times, by the way.

Now, with business dropping like flies all over the place, and such clear fear running rampant among fellow business owners, I feel utterly spent from just listening to it all.

I sit wondering if I have another "run " in me. Another run requires me to feel it, reach out, connect, network with my people, friends, clients and former clients -- create new plans, brilliant, exciting ideas and create an infectious energy irresistible to all.

Truthfully, I'm tired, and it's the kind of tired where I want to take all my toys from the sandbox and just not play anymore and pack it all up, buy a ticket to someplace else and simplify like no one ever has. I want to take an adult time out and let someone else figure out some rock solid solution.

My friend Laura mentioned spring being a time of death and rebirth, a time of passing. It's a time where you have to decide if you have the will to bloom again, to become a flower.

Flowering from an itty-bitty seed it not easy, it's a commitment. It's slow and takes work and watering and time. So much work.

I asked myself if I have the strength to bloom and push through the Earth? Ugh, that sounds so hippie and so not where I am at or something I am open to right now. I just don't want to play. My final answer? "I don't know. "

And then I realize, if not me, or us, then who? This is all happening, it's happening to us collectively as well as individually and there is something to be said about that. This is a lesson for us all. We're supposed to pull our heads out of our spoiled pretty homes full of nice things and regroup, get a new and less greedy grip.

If we step outside our situation and look in, really, we have two basic choices. We have a choice to show up depressed and defeated within this very challenging time, whining all along the way; or we have the choice to reach deep inside and be inspired and look at this as an opportunity to face our fears. We have a choice to see this as the perfect and appropriate moment to look at all of this as a gift and an opportunity to plant new dream seeds and care for these new ones with less greed and greater care towards a more grateful and authentic way of living and being.

We've needed this for a long time -- we just haven't realized it. Clean the decks, and clean house if you will. Choose to show up differently.

So yes, I am going to find the strength to push up through the Earth to bloom again, I just need to figure out what kind of flower I want to be. I'm thinking orchid or gardenia.

What flower will you bloom into? Let's get this garden on.

Comments

[Lanzi20]

Winter was the time to hunker down, whip out our (metaphorical) umbrellas, and let the rain pour down on our parades. Your "bloom" analogy is so perfect to ring in the new Spring season. It's time for all of us to stop pouting and start blooming!! With BK's and unemployment being a part of our reality these days it's even more important to make a conscious effort to push up that damn soil and bloom like we've never frigin' bloomed before. It's so easy to stay in a slump. Thanks for reminding me to get over myself. I think I'll be a Plumeria!

Alana
thebungalow.blogspot.com

[tlgeiger62]

About a week ago I was watching Oprah and Suze Orman was the guest. I love her. She’s has a bit of an annoying delivery but the information is always useful. She was talking with the audience about money matters and toward the end of the show she wanted to impart some wisdom before closing out the show. She said that we shouldn’t waste time “looking in the rear view mirror", that we all needed to muster up our courage and resolve to move on with our lives and make the best of what we have and be grateful for it.

It hit me very hard (as truth) and I realized that this is what I’d been doing since at least the end of last year. I’d been spending a lot of energy and time, looking in my rear view mirror and mourning what I saw as my life as I envisioned it. It wasn’t a big vision but it was, indeed, my vision.

You write a very nice piece with a great metaphor for finding a way to cope. My prayer is all of us who feel like things are really bleak right now, find the courage to bloom again. May God bless each and every one of us with what we need to move on and carry on.

[DSBrooks]

I have been unemployed for seven months. I actually feel really ok. I have my moments still...bu­t I am taking advantage of this time to lighten the load, literally and otherwise. I am selling a lot of my things...t­hese things don't make me who I am at my core. None of the stuff makes me anything but a person that has stuff. I am very grateful I lost my job, shocking, I know. No it has not been easy and yes things are still a mess, but I really needed something to level me and the loss of the job (and father at the same time) brought me back to me. Not over night, but over time.

Do I know what I am going to do? Not exactly. I know to my very core that this will work out and that I will be ok, I will be better than ever. I have been humbled and I don't regret it, and I will never forget it. I may not be as rich with money as I once was...but I already feel richer in so many ways because of this new way of living...i­t's authentic living.

I am going to rise up just like the southern Resurrection Fern drinking in life - Just watch me!

[jbibbo]

Great article.

With our SF office closing in Oct and now the whole company shutting down, I am forced to reflect
on the days/years I was a freelancer. Hustle Hustle Hustle. You are a survivor Krajchir and deep down we all are. Human Spirit does not want give up.

Greesgirl, the crappy economy is NOT a tide that lowers ALL boats. Dont believe that or you will be waiting around for the tide to rise, when you should be fishing for grunion (fish caught at low tide). There are some that are prospering. Two of my close friends had HUGE years 2008 and are ramping up to have great years in 2009. But they deserve every penny. They both have huge hearts. Good people. There are also sharks out there that are prospering, capitalizing on people's overdrawn debt or bad mortgages. These people don't deserve the wealth they acquire in these trouble times.

I guess my point is hustle, do good work and have a good heart; chances are you'll blossom to be a great flower.

I am going to be a jalapeno plant.

[staciek]

It really is like the old days of freelancing ! And as I recall we were desperately happy and full of this huge sense of aliveness and possibility, weren't we!?

[greesgirl]

Fortunately (I guess), the crappy economy is a tide that lowers all boats, so it's not as if some of us are prospering while others sink. My answer to the stress of it all is to stop watching, listening to and reading the news. Because this too shall pass. We as a nation have certainly come together and overcome greater struggles: slavery, the red scare, the Great Depression, two world wars, the civil rights movement, George W. Bush's presidency­... We shall certainly overcome this too.

Phoebe
http://babymamawannabe.wordpress.com