As if on cue, the sun beamed through the blanket of clouds just as my friend and I who were having coffee outdoors were talking about transitions.
A longtime yoga practitioner and teacher, she astutely mentioned that she seldom if ever sustains an injury while in a pose. Rather, it’s usually when transitioning between poses that injuries occur.
Since I’m personally in a time of transition between the work I was doing and the work I’m meant to do next, I was thinking about how to negotiate my time of transition with grace and intentionality. With a yogi’s mentality. Ideally without “injury”. The yoga analogy has been helpful to me, and it keeps me more mindful of my actions. I realize day to day I have choices, and I’m being intentional about trying to make choices that bring me closer to the identity and the life I want to live.
It’s hard. I’m not going to lie. But it’s also weirdly satisfying. How often do we find ourselves stripped of the identity and expectations that we’ve become accustomed to? And how often are we so fully open for reinvention?
I thought back to a time in the past when I chose uncertainty. When I chose transition. And when I chose to trust the voice inside who had some wise words (if only once in a blue moon).
It was Black Friday, and I’d been up since about 3AM. Shortly after that, I arrived at a big box store to cover shoppers strategically snagging super-sized holiday sales. By midday, I was back in the office putting together a related news story for air that night. The combination of little sleep and lots of stress usually meant a migraine for me — and this day was no different. No different in that regard, until it became very different.
If you or someone you love experience migraines, you know how debilitating they can be. So I worked in spurts that day, removing myself from the dizzying overhead lights and ducking into an empty office where I could close the door and flip off the switch for a minute or two. It was quiet in there. I laid down on the floor unbothered by what might be crawling around in the commercial carpeting and stared up into the darkness. I don’t know how long I breathed into the stillness before I realized silent tears were streaming down my temples into my hair. I had already vomited once that day as a byproduct of this headache, and I was sure that given enough time, I would again. How many years of this had I suffered quietly? It had been more than a decade of hiding my headaches as best I could. More than a decade of vomiting in every city and state I visited. More than a decade of working through the pain that starts in the head then permeates the whole body. More than a decade of just working through it.
Then it hit me. “I’m choosing this.”
For all those years, I told myself I had to do this. It’s what I do. I do it well. I do it tired. I do it sick. I just do it.
“I’m choosing this?” The statement turned into a question.
When my mind’s eye zoomed out as in the Eames’ Powers of Ten film, and I saw the 40-something year-old woman, who was me, lying alone on the floor in a commercial high rise in a city in the US in North America on Earth and out and out and out and …. Wow! I felt so small in that moment. And my silent suffering suddenly seemed so unnecessary. Even silly.
I asked myself if I would make a change if I suddenly had some kind of scary diagnosis. I answered to myself, “yes.” Then a voice in my head said, “Then why don’t you find the courage to make a change from a place of health rather than a place of crisis?” Sometimes when the Universe or God talks to you and has your undivided attention, the words bring instant clarity. “Have the courage to make a change from a place of health rather than a place of crisis."
In that moment, on that day, on that floor, I awakened to the reality that it was time to make a change. I needed to forget about what people might think. I needed to forget about the plans I’d made. I needed to take care of myself now before this chronic condition accelerated into something more serious.
Months later, I finally made that change and set out into the unknown. No job. No plans. No idea what to do. And somehow I made it through. Not alone this time. But with the help of my family and friends.
So now as I face a new kind of blank slate, I’m drawing on what I learned last time when I jumped into the abyss. Without consciously remembering, I discovered I’m repeating the patterns that I found last time when I was traveling, uncertain and scared, through uncharted territory. The patterns are our personal stepping stones. They’re the things that, if we choose wisely, can bring us health and joy and connection and learning and peace. And somehow those are the transition steps that lead us to that next pose. That next place of growth and practice and breath.
So if you are in a transition period in your life too, identify some stepping stones that make you happy, that allow you to hear your voice within, that guide you to health and nature, to self-belief and service.
I’m putting my trust in these stones as I did before, and I know that they’ll lead me to what’s next for me. I’ll let you know what that is when I know.
Always remember, we have choices. Even when we don’t think we do.