My COVID Story: A Shamanic Perspective

Yesterday I had the most incredible session with a healer in Sante Fe, where I am now for some personal Ceremony work. As I spent the four hours on her table, we talked about many things. One of which was about COVID, because really who isn’t talking about this right now.

Something I have been struggling with since the start of the pandemic is how my experience has not matched anyone else’s, with the exception of one of my elder teachers. Until I had this conversation yesterday, it did not occur to me that there might be others like me out there, who were having a very spiritual experience with COVID and left to feel like they were the only ones. I felt so seen and understood as we shared perspectives. It brought tears to my eyes and moved me in such a big way. So last night I am thinking about this encounter and I feel empowered to share my story and perspective on this virus. If I can touch one person and help them not feel so alone in this insane world, speaking up will be worth it for me.

I only ask that if you plan to respond, comment or share, please be respectful. Everyone’s experience and perspective is unique and valid, even if we don’t understand or agree with it. I also reserve the right to change my opinions or perspectives on this topic at any time — as I unfold what this work is to me and what my own process shows me, my instructions and guidance evolve.

For reference, I have had an experience with COVID three times and they were all very different, but related.

The first time I encountered COVID energy was in a group Ceremony I held last year. I was sitting with a very intense group of men and women, whom I did not put together. They came to me as one unit from the start and I agreed to Facilitate for them as Shaman. This is significant because I didn’t really know what I was walking into, only to trust this process. There was an undercurrent of machismo energy in the group from most of the men, every women who participated there had been perpetrated by a man when she was a child and several of them were there to challenge/observe me in an effort to prove that I was who I said I was (or that I wasn’t). It was an interesting experience and unfortunately there was not a whole lot of respect for the Ceremony itself, which is part of what unfolds in the following weeks. During that Ceremony, the Divine also came to me directly to pass along a message… She told me that it was time to take down the armor and to collaborate. No gender, race or group of people need to fight for what is rightfully theirs — they merely need to step into their power and claim it. This “fight” is a distraction, a story and an old paradigm that keeps them from claiming their personal power. This is the patriarchy paradigm.

In Shamanism, restoration of power is our ultimate goal. This is the goal of healing and the definition of wholeness.

So in the Ceremony, there was this thing that entered the room. I knew immediately and intuitively that it was a program, a virus, something that was coming to fuck things up. Everyone froze for what seemed like an eternity until I was able to overpower it and banish it from our Ceremony space. It looked like a non-organic illustration of boxes and cogs. The fact that it “froze” us in place was very significant, there is a big metaphor piece there. I leaned over to one of my Facilitators and said, “dude, I just saw “the virus””. Little did I know that was not going to be our only encounter.

The next few days were great, as the days after Ceremony usually are. I was feeling refreshed and happy with the work we had done together. Within three days however, I was knocked on my ass for almost two weeks. Interestingly, none of the people who sat in Ceremony experienced this “virus” with the exception of one other Facilitator. During these two weeks, I felt so many things I don’t think I will ever be able to fully explain. My spirit guides were working with me constantly, my body was purging, so many messages were coming through about the old toxic (patriarchal) paradigm that was starting to fall away, I was seeing visions and sleeping as if I had psychic surgery done every day during that time. I passed through incredible amounts of fear and anxiety, which I could feel in my lungs and my ribs. This fear was about me letting go of this paradigm for myself, in my own life, and inside me. The whole experience was one long Ceremony that was asking me to release, surrender and move on through to the other side. The messages were around this energy needing to be released for me and needing to be released for the collective. Then I was shown all the ways in which I feed this old patriarchal system.

I lost my sense of taste and smell, which still evades me. This has caused me to see how much of my identity was wrapped into my increased sense of smell. I made judgments and decisions based on this keen sense. It has caused me to look at my eating disorder, where I eat things because for five seconds they make me feel good — an attempt to escape the boredom and ever growing pit of sadness that sometimes swallows my heart. I had not yet acknowledged that I need to be challenged in order to feel accomplished and that there is a childhood wounding inflicted by a masculine that keeps the sadness flowing in. This eating disorder feeds the entity I created who hides my innocent and divine feminine. It keeps others (and myself) from seeing the true me and fully stepping into my power. After my experience with this “virus”, I would never again be the same. The real me had been exposed and she as ready to be seen.

That was round 1.

The second time I encountered “the virus”, I was asked to start clearing out my adolescent closet. Metaphorically, of course. My teenage daughter had just attempted suicide, nearly succeeding, and it shoved me into a space of evaluating where I kept the adolescent in me who attempted suicide. Did I ever grieve for that sweet version of Nadia who died on that day? The one who was so terrified and overwhelmed that she saw no other way through this life? Again, I was thrown into fear. This is when my panic attacks went from once a month to every night. During this wave of the “virus”, I had to call in a therapist and a healing team to work with me. I had trouble breathing again and was reminded that the fear is connected to this. I was to consciously work with my breath to release this fear that was consuming me. During this period, I was asked (forced) to let go of the masculine side I held as a mother. A mother figure who was critical of my kids. One who lacked the nurturing patience they needed and violated the safe space that needed to be held for them to work through their own stuff as they moved through their adolescence. These few weeks were also when my husband and I decided to start seeing a couple’s counselor to re-establish the masculine/feminine dynamic in our partnership.

My world had been rocked, destroyed if we are being honest, and it started with this “virus”.

Fast forward to Christmas of 2021 for round 3. We visited my in-laws out of state this year and the whole experience was nothing short of a sci-fi story. When we arrived, it felt like we had traveled through a portal of time and space. Like we were in a different reality — and my whole family felt it. It felt like we were in a place we didn’t belong and even the food impacted our bodies differently while we were there. And it was a place we didn’t belong, it was the old paradigm and we were visiting it together. As soon as we arrived to my in-law’s house, my teenage daughter and I got hit with what felt like full psychedelic Ceremony (Medicine)!. I hid in a bedroom to speak to the energy and I knew immediately that it was COVID again, as it is now an energy I can sense and identify. This time we only sat together for 4 hours. There was something small that still needed to be purged for me and I witnessed for the first time my teenage daughter holding space for me to do that. As soon as it hit us both, she went to take a nap and I went to purge. I threw up for those four hours, my husband smudged me and supported me as the energy moved through. Again came the intense fear and trouble breathing, the restriction in my chest. I called in my favorite guide and he told me this would be a short wave, I just had to feel what was coming up, acknowledge it and let it move through. When I asked him how my daughter was doing, he showed me a vision of her sleeping on the couch, surrounded by her guides and fae royalty. This was her first brush as a space-holder and she was helping me move this lingering energy! It was an incredibly beautiful experience and when the four hours was done, we popped right back up and carried on with our day.

At the end of that trip, I was given the very clear message that there were just going to be some people who weren’t able to release the old paradigm, the old energy that we are shifting out of here on earth. “They aren’t coming, they can’t come, they are being left behind”. This is a message that I have had several people say to me, verbatim, during Ceremonies over the last two years. I don’t know what it means, I don’t know where we are going, but I do know the importance of releasing things that no longer serve us. When we fight, kick and scream, the whole experience is harder than it needs to be. And sometimes we lose that battle.

In Shamanism, healing means to release and digest emotions. When emotions go undigested, they fester and become illness and dis-ease. My time with COVID has really solidified this perspective for me and honestly brought it to a new dimension.

With all of these experiences, it has me reframing what this “virus” really is to me. I experience it as a vibration that moves through. Attuning each of us to a new energy, forcing us to leave an old energy behind. If we consider that letting go can be the hardest thing, might that resistance to letting go be the “symptoms” popping up? If we stop masking our natural reactions with advil, pepto or other drugs, what does this experience feel like in our bodies and in our hearts? If we stop ourselves from being exposed to the energy attunement, what happens then?

Have you had an interesting experience through interacting with COVID? If so, I would love to hear it in the comments!