What to do in the Waiting: The Questions of Complex Transitions - Part 2
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Excerpt from What to do in the Waiting Part 1 “The period of waiting in transition has been such a long long season for me. I often felt like I did as a child in the endless snowy climate of Minnesota – will summer ever come? And like a bear moving out of hibernation, I’m ecstatic to see that spring is here for me and summer on the horizon! For those in the waiting of in between: Though your winter may be long, I believe your season of summer will soon come.
In addition to praise, play and explore here is the continuation of thoughts regarding what to do in waiting: The questions of complex transitions…
4. Embody my Transition - I am on a long journey to remind my mind to let my body express itself as guide and teacher. My call to action in my recent transition was to take my body on a daily walk or meet it on the mat in simple stretching exercises. I was to attend to what my body wanted to tell me - what it had been carrying all along. I would listen to its aches, moans and subtle plea to at minimum, MOVE! I became aware that everyday I am invited to participate in life in an embodied way - through my flesh and bones.
As I continued the practice of attending to the present and listening to my body’s needs, an increasing learning arose. The awareness of long-standing disembodiment or disconnectedness to my body over the course of my lifetime. I remember sitting in the doctor’s office once as a young person. I was asked by the attending doctor if the pain I was experiencing was sharp or dull. I sat dumbfounded. I had literally no idea what he was talking about. I said, “What’s the difference?” How do you explain and describe what feelings are like? When asked by my first counselor what feelings I was experiencing, I once again had no words. I was not aware of the lack of education I had received around what words went with feelings. I had no language to express the state my body was in. And yet now, many years and much education later, I’m aware I’m not that unusual.
This recent transition was different. I knew differently. I felt the whole thing different. It was intense and heavy and my body often just wanted to run. I became aware of the need to “read” “listen” and “study” what my body was trying to communicate and what I needed to do about it. A counselor friend described it this way, when we live under stress our cortisol levels are excreting much more than is sustainable to live with. That’s the loose definition of “burn out”. We literally have no hormones left when we’ve been living in a heightened state of stress. .
My body was trying to teach me, often in contradiction with my logical brain what to do or not to do. It was like listening to instructions given in an unknown foreign language. Many have said, the body instinctively knows how to move, stop for rest and breathe deeply. We stop at the end of a run or eat when we’re hungry or go to the bathroom when we need to. Yet many of us don’t speak the language of our body and DO NOT do these very basic bodily functions - breathing, eating, and resting. Especially in times of intense stress, a period of long grieving or after a trauma we must retrain our minds to listen to what are body is trying to say.
In transition, your body can be a master teacher providing great wisdom into your future direction. For years, but especially in times of stress, my body, when I listened spoke loudly through stomach pains and shoulder aches. It was crying for something to change! I just hadn’t been listening. I now credit my last transition with final decisions based on the way my body communicated to me about what I absolutely must or must not do. This became a profound way of listening and engaging in decision-making in a new way for me. How are you listening to what your body is trying to tell you in transition?
5. Be the hope you need. Volunteer – in your greatest times of need, and especially in transition, look to give, not receive. When I think about the periods of major life transition over the course of my life, I’m grateful that several times I have had the privilege of a “holy nudge” to step outside of my own problems and serve others. I learned this hard lesson first the fall after my freshman year of college.
In April, as school was coming to a close, I received notice from the financial aide department at the end of my freshman year that funds were not accessible to me to support myself for 3 more years. I had a decision to make about how to raise or earn the amount I lacked. I decided I needed to work hard during the summer to manage the gap. Despite my best efforts and prayers, the funds were insufficient. That fall, as others returned to their dorms, I packed my belongings, said goodbye to the university and to the location in a short time I had grown to love.
As devastated as I was, I knew at the young age of 19, that I didn’t want my life to waste away. In addition to getting a full time job, I chose to explore two forms of volunteering. One of them was in the local children’s hospital in the play therapy ward. I was curious more than anything. What did that type of work look like? Would I want to do more of it in the future?
I quickly got to know many children who were hooked up to IV’s 24-hours a day. They needed frequent monitoring and multiple surgeries for complex illnesses I will never understand. My only job was to provide some form of joy and outlet for them to be children and not only “sick people”. As I carved out two hours a week for a year, I watched as some children improved and others did not. One day I arrived to work to discover, much to my surprise, my favorite child was no longer with us. The terminal diagnosis of children’s cancer took his young precious life.
I became aware in moments of volunteering like these of the fragility of life. That most of us have choices of what to do with unfortunate life circumstances. For many our pain is temporary. In my case these little children were hurting in profoundly more significant ways that I was in my transition away from college. I knew I needed to surround myself with them even for a couple of hours every week to remember that. I could offer them something I had that they did not - the ability to play; the ability to have hope. Every time I left I was more grateful for the life I had, despite it being so different and even disappointing. I, fortunately had the power to choose how I would build the narrative of my future. These children did not. My lacking became much less about a boulder of a problem on my path and more about seeing them as stones to use to build something meaningful from. What I gained from the experience of volunteering was profound gratitude and perspective of the bounty of what I did have!
In my recent season of transition I volunteered in the small ways that I could manage. I was once again afforded the gift of time, the resource everyone else wanted. I intentionally tried to move toward someone with needs on a weekly basis - whether that was through childcare, organizing, volunteering at a local charity, picking someone up from the airport or inviting someone for dinner. I didn’t have my natural energy and I REALLY didn’t feel like I had much to give, but I knew I had something small and I was always blessed in return.
I have the choice to dwell on my circumstances or to focus on making the most of what I have been given. Many times it is a subtle shift that changes me - when I extend myself to others I focus on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable.
Nevada Museum of Art
6. Keep showing up. As simple as this might sound, being present was the most profound and difficult thing I felt God nudging me towards.
When people felt uncertain and maybe even unsafe, the reminder was to show up. In showing up, I had to face people I really had no love in my heart for. Then I had to face my heart. I was invited to show up to understand my part. Show up to learn what to do next. Show up to be a part of the conversation. Show up to see where I was no longer a part of the conversation.
Likewise, I felt challenged to talk with others about all the ambiguities: “What’s next?” “What are you doing with your time?”. “Showing up” was my daily act of obedience.
In showing up, several things happened. I gained greater perspective outside of the one-sided stories I would tell myself and the small world I was creating. I once again received blessings. I met new people and gained new understanding of the way forward.
I was repeatedly faced with the graciousness of God’s timing and the lack of my knowledge about the bigger picture.
When we are faced with long periods of waiting we have the gift of deciding how we are going to posture ourselves. We have the choice to learn the lessons that only can be learned in transition. May we be bold in each of these difficult places to hear what we are to glean from this unique winter season.
