MOVING BEYOND FEAR TO FIND OUR BRILLIANT SELF

This week I’d like to talk about the wilderness zone.  No, not something we’d find on the reality show Survivor but that place we find ourselves in on our life journey after some type of change has occurred; that place in between a change and our new beginning.  That in between place is the transition stage of change and I call it the wilderness because it can be a wild, unsettled place (change expert William Bridges calls it the neutral zone).

It is wild and unsettled because the old and the new overlap.  It is unsettled because we are all over the place and struggling for control.  One day, we seem to be moving forward only to find ourselves sliding back the next day.  It is a place where we often feel frightened, confused, and scared.  Author Marilyn Ferguson sums it up nicely when she says, “It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change or so in love with the old ways, but it’s that place in between that we fear. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.”

If a change causes us to lose the person, place, or thing that was our security blanket, our comfort zone, it is easy to see how fear can enter the picture.  Fear is a primitive emotion that acts as an internal early warning system.  Fear is ‘activated’ when something threatens our well-being.  That something could be a bully, a predator, a dangerous weather situation, or just something unknown and new (like what may follow a sudden, unexpected change).  Fear is healthy when it prompts us to do something that removes us from a harmful situation.  However, fear is not healthy nor is it helpful if it holds us back from moving forward especially in times of change.

After ending something and letting go, we have probably entered the wilderness if we:

• are fearful, worried or concerned especially about the future;
• have a feeling of being lost and scared of making a wrong decision or choosing the wrong path;
• feel confused;
• sense that the change is a good one, but we just don’t know how we are going to make it work;  
• are excited and overwhelmed by the possibilities after ending something or letting go;
• have a strong desire to try something different; and,
• question ourselves (Who am I?, What purpose do I now serve?), what happened, and the next steps (What comes next? What is my new reality?).

Why, if this neutral zone, this wilderness is so “wild” and further engenders confusion and fear is it important when dealing with change?  It is because out of the confusion and fear, new ideas, new discoveries, reorientations, and creativity take center stage and help move us toward something we might be able to accept, something that might make our life better.  It is because in this zone of transition that we find ourselves.

Some “travel” tips while roaming the wilderness include:

• Take time to face our fears and to work through them; work through all that feels uncomfortable.
• Talk, talk, and talk some more.  Talk about feelings, fears, frustrations, anxieties, and ideas.
• Engage in new activities. We are outside of our comfort zone in the wilderness so chances for growth to take place are plentiful. 
• Explore options and look at the possibilities and opportunities.
• Experiment with the ideas that come to the surface. 
• Reward and reinforce any and all efforts to keep moving forward. 
• Be patient and take sufficient time to work through the thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.
• Be observant.  Watch for “footprints in the snow” or those signs of how things are evolving.  Capitalize on the moments of creativity.
• Set short-term goals.  Where do things need to be in a day?  A week?  At the end of the month?  What should things look like in a day, week, or month? 

There is no doubt that the wilderness is a scary place; it is often uncomfortable in the wilderness.  When in the wilderness, we have given up something with which we were once very comfortable, but we have not yet become comfortable with the “new place.”  If we get scared enough, we may be tempted to fall back on the former, the old; we may try to slip back into our comfort zone. This is all normal and natural.  In fact, time in the wilderness is not linear.  It is more like start, stop, loop back, move forward, step back, surge forward.   Time in the wilderness is more spiral – or cork screw-shaped – than linear or one dimensional.  But, time in the wilderness is well spent and when the journey is finished, we will be ready to move on and make a successful new beginning. As motivational speaker and author Matthew Kelly says, “It is often in the middle of nowhere, lost and confused, when nothing makes sense, that we find ourselves and come to know ourselves in new and brilliant ways.”