Fear of Transformation*
Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings.
I'm either hanging on to a trapeze bar or 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
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 right answers. But once in a while, as I'm merrily
(or not so merrily) swinging along, I look 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 the present,
well-know bar to move to the new one.
Each time it happens to me, I hope (no, I pray) that I won't
have to 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. Each time I am afraid I will miss, that
I will be crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between
the bars. But I do it anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of
what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantee, no
net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow,
to keep hanging onto that old bar is no longer on the list of
alternatives. And 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." Its called transition.
I have come to believe that it 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 "nothing", a no-place between places.
Sure the old trapeze-bar was real, and that new coming towards
me, I hope, that's real, too. But the void in between? That's
just a scary, confusing, disorienting "nowhere" that
must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible.
What a waste! 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 necessarily)
accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled,
passionate, expansive moments in our lives.
And 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 the trapeze bars.
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 be enlightening, in the true sense
of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how
to fly.
*From the Essene Book of Days