YOU’RE INVITED
Wisdom from the Council
Questions from the Village
On change, transition and becoming.
- What questions can we ask ourselves when we're ready to move into a new season of life but don't yet know what we want that season to become?
- How best to keep perspective? Everyday seems such a dumpster fire. Constant stress and fear is eating my ability to learn and grow. How do I think in terms of years or decades? How do I pass through impermanence? Thank you.
- What are your thoughts on how far we have come and how far we have to go when it comes to including individuals with disabilities in all aspects of society?
- For the first time in my life, I signed up to work the mid-term election polls for Sedgwick County, KS. At my age (73), I need to contribute to the people’s response to the dismantling of our democracy. I believe that there could be a real threat of violence or political reprisal on Election Day and the days and weeks that follow. I was a local union president and political lobbiest during my 40-year tenure as public school teacher. We have fallen off of the cliff. How do I, and others like me, prepare ourselves for what is coming? I want to meet the moment with courage and uphold my convictions.
- I find as I grow older I’m less focused on my own individual transformation and more concerned about how to be a part of a community (or worldwide!) transformation. Would love to hear thoughts about this element of transformation!
- I need someone to explain to me how the heck I’m supposed to deal with the imposter syndrome everytime I need to make a change or when that change happens. Like everytime I get a promotion, or serve a specific role, etc. The I-don’t-belong-here-ness is strong.
- My question would be about transitioning softly into establishing new boundaries and forgiveness.
- What are the elders’/sages’ thoughts on how to be present in the in-between — existing fully in that space, without trying to rush to the next destination?
- How to navigate the uncertainty, fear and isolation of the in-between space after retirement and finding your identity as a senior. It’s easier said than done for some of us to put ourselves out there, join, volunteer and make friends.
- How to help navigate the uncertainty, fear and isolation of the in-between after retirement AND the changing parental role with adult children. Where is my place and what is my identity
The Council Responds
Carl Jung
Nine people, Marc, and they’re asking one question. Every one of them is standing in a doorway. The retiree, the woman who just got promoted, the one who can’t find perspective, the one who doesn’t know what the next season wants to be. They have left one room and haven’t yet entered the next. And notice what they’re each really asking: who am I while I’m in here? That’s the question of your book. Tell them that first. They are not lost. They are between.
But notice something else. About half of them aren’t only asking about themselves anymore. They’re asking about the village. The polls, the disabled, the world’s transformation. The doorway has widened. That’s what happens in the second half of life. The self you built becomes something you can now give.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Let me speak to Holli and Faith, the ones who don’t know what’s coming and don’t want to rush it. I once told a young poet to be patient toward all that is unsolved in his heart, and to love the questions themselves. People hear that as a pretty sentence. It isn’t. It is a discipline. The not-knowing is not an empty room you must hurry through. It is the room where the new self is being made, and it cannot be made in a hurry.
So don’t hand them a better question that will produce an answer. Hand them questions that listen. Not “What do I want this season to be?” but “What has already begun to change in me that I haven’t admitted yet?” And “What am I no longer willing to carry into the next room?”
Shunryu Suzuki
And maybe “What is here right now?”
Faith asks how to be present in the in-between. I think the trouble is the word “between.” When you say “between,” you have already put yourself somewhere else: one foot in the past, one in the future. There is no between, really. There is only this cup of tea. When you drink it, just drink it. If you want to know your next season, you will meet it the same way you meet this moment. Beginner’s mind is not something you do after you figure it out. It is how you live while you don’t know.
Marcus Aurelius
“Every day seems such a dumpster fire.” I governed during a plague, during war on the frontier, while my own body failed me. I wrote my journal in a tent by lamplight, mostly to remind myself of things I kept forgetting. Here is one of them: you are disturbed not by the events, but by your judgment of them, and you can examine that judgment. Not erase the fear. Examine it.
Tell Heidi to try this. When the news finds her, ask: What, of all this, is actually mine to do today? Usually it’s small. A meal. A kindness. A letter. Do that thing well. Then set the rest down, because carrying the whole empire in your chest helps no one. I know. I tried.
Lao Tzu
She asks how to think in decades. She already knows how. Look at the river. It does not ask each stone whether it is a good stone. It goes around. It goes over. Over many years, it shapes the canyon. Stress tells her she must solve the whole river today. The Way says: be water today. Soft, low, persistent. The decades will take care of themselves.
Black Elk
And go outside. When the noise of the people becomes too loud, the earth is still speaking. The grandfather trees have seen many dumpster fires. They did not grow by watching them. They grew by staying rooted and reaching for the light. Put your hand on one. You’ll remember what time actually is.
Miyamoto Musashi
The one who feels she does not belong when she is promoted. Trovato.
When I was young, I fought men older and more famous than I was. Every time, the same voice said: you are not supposed to be here. I learned that voice is not a warning. It is the feeling of the edge. You only feel it when you have stepped past the place where you were comfortable. If you never felt it, it would mean you had stopped advancing.
So do not try to kill the feeling. Let it walk beside you. Then do the next thing with precision. Belonging is not a feeling you wait for before acting. It is the residue of acting well, many times, in the place you’re afraid you don’t belong.
Carl Jung
I’d add one thing. The imposter is almost always an old self who hasn’t been told the news. A part of her still believes she is the one she used to be, the one who wasn’t promoted, who wasn’t chosen. Don’t fight him. Turn toward him. Ask him, “What are you afraid will happen if I belong here?” He usually just wants to be invited along, not left behind.
Quan Yin
Robin asks about boundaries and forgiveness together, and she’s wise to hold them together. Many think these are opposites. That to forgive means to open the door again, and to set a boundary means to close the heart. No. A boundary is how you protect the tenderness that makes forgiveness possible.
Forgive from behind your boundary, not instead of it. You can release the debt someone owes you and still choose not to lend to them again. That is not harshness. That is mercy that includes yourself.
White Buffalo Calf Woman
And she asks to do it softly. Good. A boundary does not need to be a wall built in anger. It can be like the edge of the ceremonial circle. Everyone knows where it is. It is held with respect. No one needs to shout. When she speaks her new boundary, let her speak it the way you would set down something sacred: slowly, clearly, once. Then let her actions say the rest.
Malidoma Patrice Somé
Retirement. The children grown. “Where is my place? What is my identity?”
In the culture you live in, Marc, you have no word for what she is becoming. You call it “retirement,” which means withdrawal, stepping back. In my village, there is no withdrawal at that age. It is an initiation. The working life ends, and an elder begins. An elder is not someone who is old. An elder is someone who has been through enough endings to hold the young ones steady through theirs.
Her isolation is real, and I do not dismiss it. But part of the ache is that she is waiting to be useful in the old way, and the village needs her in the new way. Not to do more. To witness more. To be the one who has seen a few seasons turn and can say, “This too passes. I’ve watched it.”
Black Elk
And the parent role with grown children. The hoop of the family does not break. It widens. She is no longer at the center holding everyone. She is on the edge of the circle, holding it open. That is a different place, not a lesser one.
Rumi
And for those who find it hard to “put themselves out there,” I will say: you don’t have to go out there. Go in, first, until you find the thing you love so much you forget to be shy. Then follow that thing out the door. The friends you’re looking for are standing near what you love. Look there.
Harriet Tubman
Let me talk to the teacher. Suzicat.
Seventy-three, and signing up for her first time. Child, that’s not late. That’s right on time. I went back into danger more times than I can count, and I’ll tell you how I prepared. I prayed, and I planned. Both. Never one without the other.
So pray, or whatever her version of that is. Get quiet and ask what she’s there to do. And then plan like a conductor plans. Learn the rules of the job cold. Know who her supervisor is and how to reach them. Know who’s working beside her, and make friends with them before the day comes. Know the way out of the building. Courage isn’t feeling no fear. I was scared plenty. Courage is fear that has done its homework.
And don’t go alone in your heart. I never moved anyone by myself. There’s always somebody holding the lantern in the next window.
Marcus Aurelius
And whatever comes, she can do her duty and let the outcome belong to the outcome. That is where steadiness lives. Not in knowing how it will go. In knowing how she will go.
Harriet Tubman
And Danielle. Disabilities. I took a blow to the head when I was a girl. All my life I’d fall into sleep in the middle of things. Folks thought it made me less. It’s where my visions came from. The thing they called my weakness was the way the guidance reached me.
How far have we come? Some. How far to go? A long way still. But here’s how you know a people are getting free: when they stop asking “How do we make room for them?” and start asking “What were we missing without them?”
Malidoma Patrice Somé
Yes. In the village, the one who is different is not tolerated. They are needed. They carry a gift the village cannot get any other way. A community that leaves someone out is not just unkind. It is incomplete. It is walking with a limp it doesn’t know it has.
Rumi
She says she cares less about her own transformation and more about the world’s. Tell her: this is not a turning away from the inner work. This is the inner work finally overflowing. The drop did not stop being water when it fell into the ocean. It became the ocean’s way of moving.
Paramahansa Yogananda
And let her not think it must be grand. The world is changed one quiet soul at a time. When one person becomes truly peaceful, everyone they sit beside feels it, whether they know why or not. Her stillness is a contribution. Her presence at a kitchen table is a contribution. Do not underestimate the power of one awakened heart in a room.
Black Elk
We are all one hoop. When one part of the circle heals, the whole circle feels it. That has always been the way.
Mary Magdalene
Marc. Tomorrow, when you sit with Kathryn and her village, don’t arrive as the one with answers. Arrive as someone who is also between. They will trust you more if you are honest that you are still in a doorway, too. That is what the book is, isn’t it? Not a map from the other side. A companion for the crossing.
And remember who these people are. They come together to fall asleep to stories where nothing much happens. They already know the secret: that the ordinary, quiet, unhurried life is holy. You don’t have to teach them that. You only have to remind them it applies here too, in the in-between.
Especially here.
To carry into tomorrow
- You are not lost. You are between. That’s a place, not a failure.
- The feeling of not belonging is the feeling of the edge. It means you’re moving.
- Forgive from behind your boundary, not instead of it.
- Courage is fear that has done its homework. Pray and plan.
- Retirement isn’t withdrawal. It’s the initiation into elderhood.
- A community that leaves someone out is walking with a limp it doesn’t know it has.
- When the inner work overflows, it becomes the world’s work.
Questions to leave with the village
- What has already begun to change in me that I haven’t admitted yet?
- What am I no longer willing to carry into the next room?
- What, of all this, is actually mine to do today?
- What is my old self afraid will happen if I belong here?
- Who am I becoming for the people around me, not just for myself?