First Time Recovering from a Pandemic? It Might Be Time for a Reset

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Strategies and solutions for a post-pandemic world and a reminder that it’s OK to not know what to do

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One Monday morning last April I awoke with a deep ache in my bones. The week before, I’d encountered two unexpected losses in my leadership and organizational consulting business: I was hired for a retreat I intrinsically knew I wasn’t right for, and it didn’t go well. Another client was going through a merger and their coaching budget was slashed. And then two contracts had successfully come to an end. I was bereft.

But there was something else. Having been a healing/educational entrepreneur since 1998, I’m used to setbacks and cycles in my business. I could sense there was a desperate feeling lurking beyond the normal loss, but I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. Everyone else I talked to, even friends who were coming off huge successes like selling their first book, seemed to be feeling it too, saying some version of the same thing:

I am not okay. Depressed. I can’t shake the despair.

No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on—with war abroad, destructive wildfires and tornadoes, a country in aggressive polarization, inflation and mass shootings—we can all agree: the news is bad. There’s no way to prevent yourself from being affected by it. And still, I sensed this feeling of I am not okay—echoed by my clients, my family, colleagues—was related to the news, but not completely.

What was this underlying common malaise we were all experiencing?

I started returning to my spiritual practice in the morning, a few minutes of breathing, maybe a little chant, followed by writing letters to myself. And here’s what started coming through:

You’ve never recovered from a pandemic before.

This is what it looks like to wake up to what you’ve been through, even as it continues.

It’s okay to not know how to do it, or what comes next.

And you can’t go back.

I sat with the message, especially the parts about it being okay to not know; and that I can’t go back. As I called upon my inner strength to help me navigate those waters, the heavy feelings started to shift.

With all the losses we’ve had over the past few years, perhaps the loss of life as we knew it, and how we thought it would go, is the one that is most personal for many of us. Who we were and how we lived our lives before Covid-19 will never be the same. Trying to wrangle myself back into a shape and life that no longer existed, by thinking I know how to do this, was keeping me from finding new ways of being and connecting to the world.

In late June when I heard the news of the Roe vs Wade overturn, I worried that I would slink back into a morass of despair. But I heard the words again: it’s okay to not know what to do. Trust yourself. I fell into two days of feeling absolutely gutted, but I knew that on the other side of those feelings, my renewed excitement about life and knowledge of what to do from an aligned place would bobble to the surface. And that’s what happened. After donating to two organizations that help elect democratic women in office (Emily’s List and Emerge America), I followed the impetus to share these internal tools I’d developed, in a personal program I call the Covid Reset.

For a while I’d been thinking about forming a group to help people master their Covid reset. But then I thought, who wants to spend another hour or so with a bunch of heads in Zoom squares?! Certainly not me.

So, while a group process may be in the future, for now, I want to take people on an intimate journey (maybe with Zoom, but with all the attention on them) to discover more deeply what is happening inside and teach them how to access tools that would work specifically for them, with their lives and their schedule, because we’re all different. And that’s how the Covid Reset was born, a private three-month weekly training to set yourself on a path to healthy reemergence, in which you learn to trust yourself in an entirely new way.

Because the Covid Reset is tailored to fit each participant, everyone will get something different out of it. However, there are some things to be expected as I guide people through my 3-stage experience that I call The Crux, The Tools and The Strategy.

The Crux

As we talk and I listen to the layers in your recent stories, get to know the players in your world, and the circumstances of your life, rich insights will emerge. By the end of the month, we’ll have developed a rapport and be able to name the central theme or core issue underlying it all. A generic example: you’re operating from a sense of “not enough.” This lays the groundwork for: 

The Tools

I’ll listen to what you rely on to get by, and together we’ll see what’s missing, what you honestly don’t know how to create and where you have hidden skills that you can transfer towards navigating your world more effectively. For example: A Mom who thought she had zero financial skills realized that she knew where every stray sock in the house was, and where it belonged. When she transferred that skill of knowing where things are really at and where they need to go to her general finances, her relationship with money completely changed. 

The Strategy

We’ll focus on how you want to feel and who you want to be moving forward, building the skills, strength and resilience to birth that vision.

Of course, if you’ve ever been in a healing or growth-oriented process, it may not happen quite so linearly. But I can guarantee that each participant will end the Reset with increased clarity, freedom and feelings of agency. 

When I discussed my Covid Reset idea with a dear friend, she asked, “So are you going back to being a therapist?” Not quite. I do still have my license, but now I prefer to think of myself as a mountain-climbing Sherpa. You could climb the mountain yourself, but if you don’t know the terrain, the signs of weather, when to rest instead of pushing it, it’s much better and safer to climb with the partnership of an experienced guide. That’s the kind of partnership I offer in my personal and professional growth roles.

In sitting in the ‘not knowing what to do’ I decided to do something about it.

My goal in creating this program is to help others lighten their load, strengthen their self-trust, make meaning of chaos, strategize and improve their sense of agency. Benefits of that include:

• Tools to manage the hard stuff to access the freedom on the other side
• Decreased anxiety
• A new vision
• A deeper sense of connection with your purpose
• Increased ability to focus
• Satisfying relationships — less bickering, more teamwork

If any of this resonates with you, I’d love to connect and learn more. In the meantime, I wish you the best in moving through this chaotic new world with an abundance of grace. And remember, you are not alone in this experience — and it’s OK to not know what to do.

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You may also enjoy reading Real Talk: 6 Women Share How They’ve Been Navigating Covid-19, by Sweta Vikram.