My birthday was earlier this week. The
big 36. In Judaism this is an important year – a double chai – life x 2…. Like
I’ve lived two and now I’m starting on the third. (I might not get 9 lives, but
I’ll take a new one now and again!)
I have always used my birthday as a
time to reflect on the previous year and envision the year ahead. This year
especially, it’s hard to look back and see how far I have come, mostly because
I see how far I have yet to go to become the person I want to be. My friend said that was crazy that I couldn't see the change.
I don’t want to mistake “work in progress” for lack of clarity though. The process of
gaining clarity is big, but no one really talks about it. It is a very personal
process. People tend to focus on the action
part because it is more outwardly visible, but that only comes after clarity.
Roughly, it’s kind of like this:
(Note: I’m not a fan of boxes, nor do I
think that a person arrives at action and is suddenly done. This is just part
of the process of becoming, and it is iterative and cyclical.)
Anyone familiar with logic models knows
that the magic is in the arrows: the real work is getting from one “box” to the
next.
I am seeing a lot of friends right now
stuck in pre-clarity, often putting a lot of energy into thinking about
circumstances, situations, or people that are not within their power to change,
or making peripheral things seem like THE thing. I know that feeling well. It
is full of angst, but that somehow feels safer. It is easier to remain motionless
in pre-clarity, because there is no clear course of action.
Last
year I was very much in pre-clarity.
Actually,
that is an understatement. I was lost.
I
went back and re-read a poem called "Quiet" that I had written a year ago about the experience of finally
hearing my own voice again. I teared up when I read it because I recognized
that Me a year ago had no idea how scary and pivotal the process of gaining
clarity would be.
The phrase, “Can’t see the forest for
the trees” has been echoing in my mind a lot lately when I am listening to
friends: people being overwhelmed by detail to the point that they can’t look
at the entirety of a situation and separate out the pieces. It’s a feeling of
being stuck; perhaps not seeing a way out. All of that is pre-clarity. That was
very much me last year.
Gaining clarity is scary. It is scary
to admit to yourself that something isn’t working – whether that is a job or a
relationship or school or parenting or any number of things. It is hard because
we have often made a deliberate choice to put ourselves in the situation,
connected ourselves with others, and invested lots of love and energy. I
remember thinking to myself last year, “What does that say about me if I
invested wrong?”
Gaining
clarity in itself is huge – the process of owning what you know to be true, no
matter how inconvenient or weird or upsetting it may be to others. But clarity
is only the seeing piece…. And then
there is what you do after gaining
clarity.
Navigating the space between – riding the arrow between clarity and
action – is surprisingly difficult.
Things
actually got harder last year once I
had clarity. Because then it wasn’t okay just to remain still. Because once I
had clarity, it was on me to be brave
enough to act on what needed to happen. Because I couldn’t sit around and
say, “I don’t know” anymore.
At
the outset, the options for action seemed
binary – do or don’t do, keep or ditch, stay or leave. I think one of the
hardest parts of action is
navigating the gray space. Sometimes it is more about re-balancing and
redefining, which takes even more patience and creativity than a clear cut yes
or no.
Being
able to hear my own thoughts clearly means I am so much more aware of my personal
growth or the lack thereof. And quite
honestly, it is much more in my nature to judge myself harshly than to give
myself a high five. While I easily see it in others, I do not naturally see
progress in myself.
So
when I told my friend that I didn’t think I had made much progress since last
year, I see now why she thought I was crazy. I didn’t realize in the moment how
much bravery it had taken for me to gain clarity, and how much more bravery it
took to take action. I forgot that it had taken me a week alone to hear myself
think, and that it had taken even longer for me to allow myself that time!
I
am excited about this next year – this next “life” or stage in life. It feels
lighter, clearer, and more purposeful, even though none of it was what I could
have predicted a few years ago. Somehow, knowing that I have learned how to
give myself permission to listen and change course makes this next “life” already
more gentle on my soul.
