What does Purpose Person (me) do when she’s lost her mainstays? What seems to help me inch forward?
It has been nearly three months since the loss of my mom and shifts in my vocational life have landed me in the Neutral Zone of the transition process, disrupting my sense of purpose and direction. Moving forward is not linear but rather a series of lurches, labyrinths, and lapses and I remain hopeful for revitalization on the other side of this process however long it takes.
I share now how I’ve tried to engage in daily life as the dislocations/discontinuities evoked by these changes are reconfigured. Not as a prescription for others but as a way of looking back to name and continue what seems to help.
Abandoning goal-planning in favor of a more intuitive approach.
Normally, oh how I love a good goal or two or four. Even if I don’t hit the targets, my goal pursuits most often move me towards something I care about. But the systematic “Plan – Do-Check-Act” approach of a goal-driven improvement cycle does not work in the Neutral Zone when the old goals are irrelevant and the new ones have not yet revealed themselves. For now, I’m a woman who lacks the illusion of having a grand plan and am instead am just trying to pay attention to my inner life and signals that prompt action in the moment.
Choosing value-rich enterprises when possible.
I’ve benefited from continuing to show up for my daily responsibilities – work, family, social – even when their execution is less than perfect. Even more so, I’m benefiting from acting on inner prompts to choose to invest in small efforts that align with my values while slowing down to focus on their enough-ness. Send a note to someone. Sink into some aspect of my work that I love. Bake my mom’s cookies. Walk. Encourage a young colleague. Play with my grandson.
Letting myself be.
I’m learning to cut myself a whole lot of slack by acknowledging the realness of my losses rather than trying to talk myself out of my emotions surrounding them. Dr. Irv Yalom, noted existential psychiatrist, reminds me that people often grapple with loss of meaning/purpose after the dismantling of meaning-invoking structures of daily life. My mom’s presence was most definitely a meaning-invoking structure and to a lesser extent, so was my previous work role. Irv Yalom’s words normalize my experience and help me to be gentle with myself. Watch more stupid TV if I want. Accept a bit more daffiness in my thinking from time to time. Calling it all enough for now.
The truth is that these shifts in my ways of being are overdue anyhow and perhaps represent more permanent dividends of embracing transitions. Maybe my current tilt towards self-compassion and keeping things simple and fluid will stick as my “meaning-invoking structures” reconfigure themselves.
What about you? What has helped you move through the Neutral Zone of life transitions? How have you grown in the process?
Onward!
Sources:
Yalom, I.D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.