“Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together.”
— Author unknown
“Do you recall what you said when it happened?”
“Oh yes,” Johnny responded. “I said, my life is falling apart!”
I was speaking with my friend Johnny about the week his world collapsed. I think Johnny used the term “double whammy” to describe losing his job and having his wife announce that she was leaving him all in the same week. Years later now, Johnny had married a wonderful woman and was happier than I’d ever seen him. He also had a better, more fulfilling job having decided — following the breakup — to try his hand at something new and different.
“As it turned out,” he said, “my life was falling apart so it could fall together.”
As American essayist, lecturer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson so aptly expressed it, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” It’s a journey filled with crossroads and back roads, peaks and valleys, dead ends and open roads. To continue with the metaphor, sometimes we can spend so much time on the same dreary path that we become oblivious to a better, healthier route.
Johnny had lost interest in his job. He’d been doing it for years and it was no longer challenging nor rewarding. As a result, he hadn’t invested much effort into it. His marriage was emotionally bankrupt and for all intents and purposes had ceased to exist years prior. It was only familiarity that kept Johnny trudging down the same path. That and the misguided belief that disenchantment and predictability were his lot in life — that he deserved nothing better.
On the surface it seems like Johnny’s life was destined to fall apart. Who’s to say? Had he not lost his job or been faced with the end of his marriage, he may have continued along the same path — unfulfilled and regretful — right until the end.
Reflecting back, Johnny realized that his life had been guided — for the most part — by fear and resignation: fear that change could result in something even more uncomfortable, and resignation resulting from a lack awareness of better options. Both states resulted from Johnny’s exceptionally low level of self-esteem.
Sometimes life does need to fall apart in order for something better to arise. Other times, life requires tweaks, adjustments and even major overhauls to stay in balance. Both require a state of awareness that is seldom available to the person who lacks positive self-worth.
That said, here are some insights and basic techniques that may help on your journey. Abiding by them may help keep you grounded and better able to avoid unnecessary pitfalls.
l First, life is always in motion, ever changing. That is the rule, not the exception. And whether you like it or not (and I know people who don’t) you should at least acknowledge that life can be unpredictable and prepare for the unexpected. To expect life to remain static is unrealistic and a little sad. Sure, we all want some predictability but if life has become one long endurance test, it’s time to wake up and do something about it.
l Second, successful living is made up of effective transitions. A transition is the means by which you move from one state of being to another — from one change to the next. Examples of transitions could certainly be (as with Johnny) losing a longstanding job or the ending of a relationship, but could also be leaving home, moving to a new city, having children, children leaving home, or retiring. Effective transitions happen when we take action. When we do something both internally and externally. When we accept responsibility for our life.
l Third, all of us have ingrained patterns and belief systems, many of which no longer serve us. Without awareness, it’s easy to become stuck in old ways of thinking and being. It’s interesting to note that when we leave behind old operating systems and open ourselves up to experiencing something new, change can happen quickly, but we’re no longer resisting or as afraid of it.
Experts suggest there are five recognizable stages that accompany transition: loss, uncertainty, discomfort, understanding and integration. The emotions that accompany these states run the gamut from anger to panic, depending upon how we perceive and negotiate each transition. In my experience, effective transitions result from letting go of attachments. As we let go of people and events to which we’ve become attached, we also let go of the beliefs that have imbued these individuals or situations with special significance or meaning. Part of the falling apart and falling together process involves removing the perceptual filters that distort the world we experience and reveal to us, perhaps for the first time, our personal power.
I heard a metaphor once regarding our journey through life. Imagine that you’re driving a familiar route to work each day. In fact, you’ve driven this route so many times that you’ve actually worn a rut in the road. Ruts so deep in fact that you can engage your vehicle’s cruise control and take your hands off the wheel. Your vehicle travels the road with little or no effort from you.
And the only time you experience any discomfort is when you try to get out of the rut.
Indian inspirational author and spiritual teacher Riu Ghatourney once observed, “When things fall apart, consider the possibility that life knocked it down on purpose. Not to bully you or to punish you but to prompt you to build something that better suits your personality and your purpose. Sometimes things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
The journey through life should be exciting with promising twists and turns, new vistas and awe-inspiring views. If it’s a well-worn and utterly predictable path, it’s time for change.
Murray Fuhrer is a self-esteem expert and facilitator. His new book is entitled Extreme Esteem: The Four Factors. For more information on self-esteem, check the Extreme Esteem website at www.extremeesteem.ca.