Let Go or Be Dragged

"By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning."   ~Lao Tzu~

This past weekend I was in a little shop where I saw this expression on a magnet:  “Let Go or Be Dragged.”  It really hit home for me as I am in transition (or stated most optimistically, “between opportunities.”)  I was intrigued by the idea because I think I often struggle to let go.  Typically, I am self-critical about this tendency, viewing it as a character flaw.  Given my recent experiences while serving for a year as an interim head in a school enveloped by flux and unbidden change – where I absorbed a lot of peoples’ pain, served as the focal point for change, and weathered the ups and downs of a year spent leading transition, I was attracted to the idea of letting go and not getting dragged across rough terrain.  Furthermore, I am certain that one’s difficulty in relinquishing a given situation increases incrementally with one’s investment in that situation (in my case, my personal and professional investment in this particular school, its progress and its community).  So now, on the other side of a challenging and, I might say, tumultuous year, to truly let go, I think I am compelled to celebrate my strength and commitment to my work this past year and to honor myself for giving so thoroughly to this important endeavor.

We live in a world where things come easily and quickly. Many of us feel entitled to happiness as we value and seek it for ourselves and our children.  We are enamored of the idea of success, but we don’t love the long process of becoming successful. Determined and focused persistence or prolonged hard work is less attractive.  But persistence is a central facet of good growth.  Ideally, it is the excitement of reaching our aims by sticking with them that keeps us engaged and motivated.  Endless ideas about new goals we can achieve, if not matched by progress toward them, ultimately offer hollow feelings.  In other words, feeling invested and excited about what (and how) we achieve is more important than the first blush of new aims imagined.  So many boards leading schools succumb in the face of this critical dichotomy.  True growth stems not from generating new ideas but from the progress toward and achievement of well-conceived and enduring ones.

If we explicitly embrace and affirm the value of persistence we can be realistic and pragmatic in our thinking and expect obstacles and prepare for them.  In this way we connect persistent effort with performance.  If we identify problems, understand and define them, and then come up with a strategy for a solution, we can better meet life’s challenges.  The focus is on effort, feedback, and trying again; experimenting with, reflecting on, and learning from this process will lead to achievement. As we practice the process of defining a problem and all of its parts, generating and sifting through ideas, and determining a plan of action, we build confidence and resilience.  Perhaps in this way, transition becomes more about bequeathing than relinquishing.

In the face of all of this, there is little room for lacking energy, being uncooperative, or becoming lackadaisical in attitude or spirit.  With consistency and determination – long after the endeavor is exciting and fun, energizing and inspiring – you perform. Anyone who has led a school in transition, righting it and handing it intact and ready for forward momentum to its next leader, knows the value of this kind of resilience. You tap into your own determination. How much will you try despite being dispirited, frustrated, scared, and frequently countered on seemingly every level? Belief in the fundamental value of effort and determination despite difficulty is a successful strategy for life, and one benefits greatly through the persistence and determination to work hard and to earn, with blood, sweat, and tears, one’s aims.

"You cannot let go of anything if you cannot notice that you are holding it. Admit your 'weaknesses' and watch them morph into your greatest strengths."  Neale Walsch

I Have Something to Say

At the closing event for school this year, a parent graciously extended a compliment to me on a correspondence I disseminated to mark the end of the year and the transition to next year.  The parent indicated that I was a good writer and that I must love to write.  I reflected back that I actually was a shy writer and did not think of myself as skilled in that area.  This came as a bit of a surprise to the parent. As the dust settled on a busy day of people and events, I revisited our exchange and realized that for me, writing is about feeling compelled to speak, not about the art of writing.  I write because there are things I want to say.  I want to share the truth as I know it, my experience, my story, my lessons learned and shared in a spirit of connecting and resonating with a larger sense of community. I am motivated by an intense desire to share what I feel about the world of education and the people around me.

As I consider the myriad of people - students, teachers, colleagues and parents - who share their journey with me, I am reminded that being present to each other gives witness to our shared reality.  Sometimes, especially when someone reluctantly shares something critical that they think I might not want to hear, I am grateful for the gift of awareness that can only come in such moments.  On occasion as a school leader, I speak a truth that propels people into catching up with their own reality – an equally valuable gift of awareness among constituents in a school.

In the meantime, I grow, I learn, I seek and I say what that means to me and listen to what the same means to others in their lives.  One of my mantras is “learn - create - share,” and my aim is to help communities of learners to share in information more efficiently and effectively.  Blogging for me is about exploring how to use multiple modes of communication and how to become a wiser, simpler communicator.  And in the process of reflecting prior to writing on the blog, I often learn about myself and about the situations of which I am a part, even as I garner a clearer understanding and vision of the particular emotion, momentum, or practice about which I am writing.  So for me, writing is a process for reflection and expression.  Along the way, I trust that there may be something of value for others  in what I have to say.

The Courage to Lose Sight of the Shore

I was reading the other day and came across a reflection on transition that really resonated with me.  This is that time of year in schools where lots of different constituents in a school embrace lots of diverse transitions:   students moving ahead to the next level, students moving on to a new school because they have concluded their studies or because of a life change, colleagues moving on to take new jobs and pursuing new opportunities, colleagues taking time off owing to a life change.  In some cases these are warmly embraced moments and in some cases these are sad and difficult moments.  In all of these cases we need to find the courage to continue the journey, the courage to enter into transition whether it is welcomed or not.

About 17 years ago, I completed an Outward Bound survival course on Hurricane Island in Maine.  It was one of my brilliant notions that my son, then  13, and I would live this high adventure together and that through the experience, he would find new ways of approaching an important transition in adolescence –  separation from his only parent.  As it turned out that was a less important outcome for us than many other wonderful discoveries we made on our journey.

Pivotal to the whole learning experience was facing our fears.  Fears for the self and fears for the other. Letting go and self-reliance became a theme that seemed to permeate every piece of the survival course.  One such moment looms larger than the rest.  Some fifty feet off the ground on a trapeze wire I was holding a rope with one hand and needed to travel on the wire 25 feet by letting go of one rope and reaching for the next one.  Of course, there were gaps between these ropes that made it necessary to let go entirely of the first rope to actually be able to reach and grasp the second one and so on.  The gaps were incrementally larger as you travelled the trapeze wire.  If it is true that nothing comes to the intellect that was not first experienced through the senses, I was on sensory overload!

Intellectually, I came to think of risk taking differently. I began to understand better the importance of letting go and hurtling into life’s voids.  I perceived that facing my fear and moving through it was empowering and liberating and actually made me more alive, more present – stronger.

The Parable of the Trapeze

Turning the Fear of Transformation into the Transformation of Fear

 

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I'm either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I'm hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.

Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along at a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I'm in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the answers.

But every once in a while as I'm merrily (or even not-so-merrily) swinging along, I look out ahead of me into the distance and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It's empty and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts I know that, for me to grow, I must release my grip on this present, well-known bar and move to the new one.

Each time it happens to me I hope (no, I pray) that I won't have to let go of my old bar completely before I grab the new one. But in my knowing place, I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar and, for some moment in time, I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar.

Each time, I am filled with terror. It doesn't matter that in all my previous hurtles across the void of unknowing I have always made it. I am each time afraid that I will miss, that I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between bars. I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. So, for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of "the past is gone, the future is not yet here."

It's called "transition." I have come to believe that this transition is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a "no-thing," a no-place between places. Sure, the old trapeze bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that's real, too. But the void in between? Is that just a scary, confusing, disorienting nowhere that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible?

NO! What a wasted opportunity that would be. I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone is the only real thing and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the void where the real change, the real growth, occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out of control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives.

We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Anonymous        

So, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to "hang out" in the transition between trapezes. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.

by D. Parry

The Capacity of Unseen Space

Over my career as an educator I have tried to understand why the very same strategies lead to renewal and improvement in one school and to more-of-the-same performance in another. The answer that most people embrace centers on school leadership, the head of school in particular, and his or her ability to inspire confidence and support among the people on whose competence and commitment the school’s performance depends.  I have come to recognize that the essence of leadership cannot be defined by a series of personal attributes, nor prescribed through a set of particular roles and activities.  Lots of diverse people – with diverse backgrounds and styles – end up leading. ‘It is like the challenge of describing a bowl: we can describe a bowl in terms of the clay from which it is made. But a true picture must include the hollow that is carved into the clay—the unseen space that defines the bowl’s shape and capacity.’

I am always seeking ways to grasp the ‘unseen space of leadership’. The longer I look, the more I find myself reflecting on lessons in my own education and life experiences.  Like all of us, I have as an adult come into contact with, and at times been challenged by, teachers, guides or furtherers, those children and adults who shared the wisdom of life through their own work and way of being and who helped me see how I might probe my capacity through a similar awareness and reflection. The essential qualities of leading and the acts that define a leader are most present to me there in the reflection and resonance of these interactions: the ability to hear what is not said, humility, commitment, the value of looking at reality from diverse perspectives, the awareness to create safe places that invite and cultivate the unique strengths of those around one.  Indeed, at the heart of this consciousness seems to be the capacity to be a mirror reflecting what you see and a window viewing what is out there.

Life stories of others have provided me with the inspiration and insight I needed to see that to capture my ‘unseen space of leadership,’ I needed my own stories and my own presence to share those stories.  Likewise, they have helped me to see that a school’s potential - the capacity of a place and the solutions to its challenges- lies inside its own distinctive stories and storytellers.

The Wisdom of the Mountain

In ancient China, on top of Mount Ping stood a temple where the enlightened one, Hwan, dwelled.  Of his many disciples, only one is known to us, Lao-li.  For more than 20 years, Lao-li studied and meditated under the great master, Hwan.  Although Lao-li was one of the brightest and most determined of disciples, he had yet to reach enlightenment.  The wisdom of life was not his.

Lao-li struggled with his lot for days, nights, months, even years until one morning, the sight of a falling cherry blossom spoke to his heart.

        "I can no longer fight my destiny," he reflected. "Like the cherry blossom, I must gracefully resign myself to my lot."

From that moment forth, Lao-li determined to retreat down the mountain, giving up his hope of enlightenment Lao-li searched for Hwan to tell him of his decision.  The master sat before a white wall, deep in meditation.  Reverently, Lao-li approached him.

        "Enlightened one," he said  But before he could continue, the master spoke, "Tomorrow I will join you on your journey down the mountain."

No more needed to be said. The great master understood. The next morning, before their descent, the master looked out into the vastness surrounding the mountain peak.

        "Tell me, Lao-li," he said, "what do you see?" "Master, I see the sun beginning to wake just below the horizon, meandering hills and mountains that go on for miles, and couched in the valley below, a lake and an old town."

The master listened to Lao-li's response. He smiled, and then they took the first steps of their long descent. Hour after hour, as the sun crossed the sky, they pursued their journey, stopping only once as they approached the foot of the mountain. Again Hwan asked Lao-li to tell him what he saw.

   "Great wise one, in the distance I see roosters as they run around barns, cows asleep in sprouting meadows, old ones basking in the late afternoon sun, and children romping by a brook."

The master, remaining silent, continued to walk until they reached the gate to the town. There the master gestured to Lao-li, and together they sat under an old tree.

   "What did you learn today, Lao-li?" asked the master. "Perhaps this is the last wisdom I will impart to you."

Silence was Lao-li's response. At last, after long silence, the master continued.

   "The road to enlightenment is like the journey down the mountain.  It comes only to those who realize that what one sees at the top of the mountain is not what one sees at the bottom. Without this wisdom, we close our minds to all    that we cannot view from our position and limit our capacity to grow and improve. But with this wisdom, Lao-li, there comes an awakening. We recognize that alone one sees only so much - which, in truth, is not much at all. This is the wisdom that opens our minds to improvement, knocks down prejudices, and teaches us to respect what at first we cannot view. Never forget this last lesson, Lao-li: 

“What you cannot see can be seen from a different part of the mountain."

When the master stopped speaking, Lao-li looked out to the horizon, and as the sun set before him, it seemed to rise in his heart. Lao-li turned to the master, but the great one was gone. So the old Chinese tale ends. But it has been said that Lao-li returned to the mountain to live out his life. He became a great enlightened one.

by W. Chan Kim and Renee A. Mauborgne