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