The Magic of Transition
Sometimes in life when things begin to shift, the ground beneath us begins to feel unsteady. As we grow beyond the things that feel familiar we start to feel unsure.
These feelings are often symptomatic of transition and it's not necessarily a bad thing! We can choose to think of it as adjusting to a whole new, level of being that will help us to reach a higher level of fulfillment. Still, I get it, times of change can feel a little overwhelming....
It's important in these moments to keep your ship headed towards the direction of your dreams- trust in the process of growth and your strength to get there!
Many years ago a friend sent me this article and it opened up a beautiful new perspective for me on these spaces of magic in transition.
TRANSFORMATION
from the Essene Book of Days by Danaan Parry
hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my
life, I'm hurling 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. In my heart-of-hearts I know that in order for me to grow, I must
release my grip on the present, well-known 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 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 that 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 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 void of "the past is gone, the future is not yet here." It's
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 that 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 the new one coming towards me, I hope that is real too. But the void
between? That's just a scary, confusing, disorienting "nowhere" that
must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste!
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.
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 also be enlightening, in the true
sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we may just learn to fly."
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