There are times in each of our lives when our well-ordered existence seems to crack open and things no longer seem to work as they once did. This may occur slowly over time or with an unexpected suddenness. We may be shaken or taken over by a persistent boredom and discontent, or feel the disturbing, anxious or depressing sense that something is not right, or we may be shocked by the “unexpected” appearance of disabling emotional distress or physical disease. Or perhaps we may have simply reached a time in life when we can no longer avoid the inner longing that knows that there is something more – something more meaningful and more possible for our life.
When we reach a critical crossroad, sensing that movement in any direction will not resolve our growing disenchantment, we are stopped in our tracks, and primed, like it or not, for momentous change. In the words of Mary Oliver:
Through the enormous yards of day
To do all that we hope to do,
We did not hear, beneath our lives,
The old walls falling out of true,
Foundations shifting in the dark.
These words are echoed by Dante in the opening lines of his Divine Comedy:
I found myself in a dark wood
For I had lost the true path that never strays.
At such a moment we are at the entranceway to a life transition, a very special, sacred and pregnant time that is filled with unseen possibilities. If this opportunity is taken up and fully lived and experienced our lives can expand and be reborn into a larger life filled with new possibilities. But if we refuse or deny this opportunity our life will recede into the stagnation of the past accompanied by the signs and symptoms of persistent emotional distress and premature illness whose source seems obscure to ordinary vision but is most assuredly our refusal to grow larger. We run, we run, we run from no other than our self. Our excuses are man: not enough time, not enough money, I’ll wait till the kids are out of school, perhaps during summer break, and on and on. The poet Francis Thompson offers us these words:
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways;
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
And so it is that we find ourselves confronting the great transitions in our life at moments of pain and struggle, distress and disease. At such times we most acutely feel the fear, the darkness and the terrifying unknown. All that our well organized life has avoided comes to the forefront. Reaching outside for help we will often consult a psychologist or physician hoping for a remedy to our growing distress. And at times there is help – the temporary relief from physical suffering, a medical treatment, new psychological tools or medications and at times even a cure. What we call ordinary health may return and this is good, but if that is all that happens it is a false achievement.
Unfortunately most psychologists and physicians are not trained to identify or to cultivate this precious and rare “teaching moment.” As a result, the potential life transition that our distress points to is lost. We may feel better as we return to “normal,” but the opportunity to be reborn into a larger life and health has been lost in the narrowness and blindness of a limited view of health, healing and the human possibility. Here we arrive at the wisdom of the great psychologist Carl Jung who urges us onward toward transition and new growth rather than faltering in the stagnation in the past.
It must be understood that the mere fact of living in the present
does not make a man modern, for in that case everyone presently
alive would be so He alone is modern who is fully conscious of the
present …. Indeed, he is completely modern only when he has
come to the very edge of the world, leaving behind him all that
has been discarded and outgrown, and acknowledging that he stands
before a void from which all things may grow.
So to grasp this opportunity we must look beyond the limited training of our usual helpers, see through the darkness, accept the call to a new life, fall in-love with the possibilities, and find inspiration in the great stories of transition and change. We can learn from the journey of Odysseus, the quest of Parsifal, the trials of Job or perhaps even from our next door neighbor. These great stories of death and renewal inspire us, offer us a map that can guide us through the dark night, reconnect us to our soul, and bring forth the light of a larger life. It is a map that gives us a clear picture of the stages and process of transition, a map that can alchemically help us transmute suffering, pain and disease into the great human treasures of wholeness, peace, love and joy. It is this map that I will begin to share with you here.
The great poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “The end is where we start from.” All transitions begin with endings that in their essence are a dying off and separation from certain parts of our life and identity that no longer work for us. This may include relationships, lifestyles, work, meanings, values, desires, mental attitudes, or the false sense of our immortality. This beginning stage of a life transition is a difficult one that is filled with disenchantment and disillusionment with what has been accompanied by a painful recognition that what once worked will no longer work for us and cannot be fixed. Endings must precede new beginnings and yet many, immobilized by an understandable fear, will refuse this call, recoil from this adventure and grasp onto the old ways, returning to the stagnation and spiritual decay of what was – losing personal power, creativity and the life force itself to years of quiet desperation.
This critical period, when we hear and are summoned to answer the call to change is a momentous time of our life when the courage and risks taken will determine for many years ahead the character of our lives. Those who chose to pass through the threshold and move beyond will be taken into a new life through a passage into and then out of the chaos of the unknown and unfamiliar. The writer Tolstoy describes his journey into the unknown with the following words:
I felt that something had broken within me upon which my
life had always rested, that I had nothing left to hold on to …
an invincible force impelled me to get rid of my existence ..
I did not know what I wanted. I was afraid of life; I was driven to leave it …
But when we choose to answer the larger call and take distress, anxiety, confusion, doubt, despair or disease as a message for change we will not be alone. Unexpectedly we will find the appearance of inner and outer spiritual guides. As an inner guide you will experience an unknown stillness and peace and faith, conviction and confidence that the correct path has been chosen and that the storm will be weathered. As an outer guide an individual will often appear who is experienced with such transitions and can and will become for you an invaluable first mate on your journey of renewal.
This stage of transition, the movement into the unknown, can be marked by perilous and strange times of disorientation, numbness, uncertainty and fear. These feelings, feelings that may vary in intensity for months, are often punctuated by moments of extraordinary illumination – glimpses of the new and larger life to come. These are difficult times, but with help from our guides we can learn how to stay the course, live into our experiences and develop a faith in the process of change, growth and renewal.
And it is important not only to seek the assistance of a wise guide but also to take care, good care of your body. When we may be less than motivated to care for our self it is most important to eat well, get lots of sleep, stay away from intoxicants and exercise regularly. When we move through our life transition to the other side we want to have a healthy a body with which to experience the reconnection to our soul and spirit.
As one slowly surrenders to the realization that no one thing or one person can maker it better there emerges an acceptance and even an anticipation of the unfolding of a new life. The distress slowly lifts and a deepening sense of self-confidence, self-reliance and self responsibility enters into our life. Finally, we reconnect with our soul essence of authentic life. Abandoning the illusionary dependence on relationships, career, fame and power as the sources of security and happiness, we begin to discover within what we have always and unsuccessfully searched for on the outside. The poet Pablo Neruda speaks to this moment in transition in the following words:
And I went on my way;
Deciphering that burning fire
And I wrote the first bare line.
And this exhilarating first discovery of our inner life is the shift we have awaited – the shift that awakens us to a new and genuine existence. We are slowly able to read the yearning of our soul – the fire in our belly. We begin to write that first line that is bare of our previous existence, our old patterns and outdated directions. It is a solid, secure and meaningful ground upon which to build the next movement of your life.
There is much we learn in transitional times including the nature of humility. Coming from a place of comfort, security, achievement and stability we are forced to let go of a tightly held control and surrender to life itself. We soon discover that what separates each of us from the predicament of others is no more than the moment between two beats of the heart. And then, there arises within us a profound compassion for others, a compassion whose basis is a wisdom and love that connects and heals all that is touched by it.
The natural unfolding of a life transition is such that in time turmoil and disorientation are replaced by a deeper understanding of life, a previously unknown inner peace, security, ease and freedom, and a healing that is also a wholing. Returning to our day-to-day life we bring to others what we have learned from our spiritual journey. We soften and enrich the world around us – family, friends, relationships, work and community. And we begin to divest our self of trivial activities and meaningless entertainment, choosing rather to surround ourselves with companions and experiences that support our growing inner life.
The reward for the completion of a heroic journey is the return home to who and what we are, the return home to a health and healing of mind, body and spirit, a return home to a renewed life of authenticity, joy and freedom. Stripped of old fears, limitations, illusions and fantasies we can engage life with the freshness and firstness of an early spring morning. And this is the nobility of human life and the essence of a final, comprehensive and complete healing. Here we come to the words of Derek Walcot:
There will come a time when with elation
You will greet yourself arriving at your own door:
In your own mirror
And each will smile at the other’s welcome
And say, sit here, eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine, give bread.
Give back your heart to itself,
to the stranger who has loved you all your life,
Whom you ignored for another,
Who knows you by heart.
These are the touchstones of the transition process. And as difficult and as treacherous as it may seem when the ripening occurs and life begins to return you come to know that the modern day hero no longer fights his battles on the fields of Troy or the beaches of Normandy, but rather plants his flag on the battlefield of the soul. And the peace and healing we find inside becomes the peace that will be found outside. Through our own courage to engage change we become the seeds for a better world.
There are those who ask, “Why do I have to go through this while others seem to be happy and never in crisis?” Perhaps it is no more complex than the realization that some of us are born to be seekers and some not and some of us are destined for a larger healing and wholing and others not. The writer Anais Nin stated it this way:
I live the personal drama responsible for the larger one, seeking
a cure. Perhaps it is the greater agony to live this life in which
my awareness makes a thousand revolutions while others make
only one. My span may seem smaller but it is really larger because
it covers all the obscure routes of the soul and body, never
receiving medals for its courage.
You may inquire as to what all of this has to do with health and healing? Why would a physician trained as a healer write about chaos, crisis and transition? The answer always jumps out the same. We are connected beings, One cannot separate mind, body and spirit. We know now more than ever through personal experience and scientific research that throughout life the human body is shaped and molded by our mind and spirit. Thus our choice to respond to inner and outer adversity by growing our inner life insures not only an inner harmony but an outer one as well. Discovering and unfolding the great treasures of human life – wholeness, peace, love and happiness – permanently harmonizes and heals our entire being, allowing us to arrive at a full, comprehensive, and sustained healing of mind, body and spirit. This is the gift of undertaking the journey of life transition and renewal.
From years of medical practice I know how easy it is to close the door on the highly vulnerable and pivotal moments of distress and disease, moments that contain the possibility of great change. These opportunities for a larger life are often closed with the very drugs and treatments whose only effect is to relieve symptoms, providing needed comfort while the larger healing and wholing is lost.
And so I write these words to you to let you know that your deepest distress and despair, the suffering and fear of illness, intractable addiction and even death itself can be transformed into a possibility to discover the beauty and nobility of human life. These difficult moments can become the source of a final and complete healing. That is what a meaningful and precious human life is about. That is what the great sages have always taught us across time and cultures.
The final words will come from our Western tradition, words written by the father of Western philosophy in approximately 450 B.C. Speaking of each of us he says:
During their lifetimes they see such a
Little part of life and then they are off:
Short-lived, flying up and away like smoke,
Totally persuaded by what each of them
Happen to bump into while being driven
One way, another way, all over the place. And
They claim in vain that they have found the whole.
Like this, they now say that people can see or
Hear or consciously grasp the things I have to teach.
But as for you:
Because you have come aside here, you will learn.