The bitter and the sweet in transitions

“They don’t even know they have wings.”

— Mary Oliver, This Morning, Felicity

I have a hard time with transitions—the day or days before a big trip—the shift from one big project to the next—basically any time I leave or arrive. I used to think it was a character flaw but over time I have come to understand it more as a part of how I am built. And I’m endeavoring to write about it because I know I am not alone. Some of you who are reading also struggle with transitions—and some of you who are reading this have children or loved ones who do.

I get irritable and anxious. I perseverate about stupid details of my trip. I want to cling to my present situation as if you asked me to leap from one tall building to the next.  

I have come to understand my struggle of transitions as the flip side of one of my strengths: I get very attached. I get intensely involved in what I am doing—whether that is being home with friends, working in my garden or far away working with a group of people. Once I am ‘in’ I am ‘in.’ I don’t just show up: I send down roots. And so there’s a part of me that always experiences leaving or shifting from one thing or another as tearing or ripping. It feels painful. It feels permanent. It feels too big and too hard.

For a long time I didn’t connect my moods and feelings of meltdown with transition—I thought it was more connected to what was happening in the moment. I blamed myself. I blamed whatever was bugging me. But over time I can now catch myself in the act—and if I pull back and can see it from a distance—see the shift that is coming around the bend—then I can name the struggle as one of transition.

I’m newly reacquainting myself with it because for the three years of the pandemic I didn’t run in to it in quite the same way. And because I hadn’t seen it in a while I mistakenly thought the problem had faded. But it hadn’t. It’s just that I hadn’t used that muscle in a long time. And then 2023 arrived with all of its 2019 energy—with in-person work, and business travel back and there it was in full color again.

Because I worked with kids who struggled with this I have tried some of the things that work with kids: have your schedule in black and white so you can see when things are happening, break tasks into small chunks, remind yourself of what you are excited about for the thing you are going to, remind yourself that transitions feel hard but you always make it to the other side fine, make the process as a easy as you can, give yourself plenty of time so you don’t add more anxiety to the situation.

All of those things are good for mood management. They are good to help you have as much resilience as you can. But they don’t change the fundamental experience. For that, I am trying to learn acceptance. Learning to remind myself that this is how it feels and that’s ok. Asking myself what I need to feel better, or get through it as best I can. Letting myself feel the loss of what I am leaving—and letting my feelings of loss be ok.

For so many years I thought that successfully managing transitions would look like feeling fine, or maybe even feeling nothing at all. And when I couldn’t make that happen I thought I was doing it wrong. And more recently I have come to see changing my feelings isn’t the goal—but instead letting myself go through them—which is a different goal altogether.

We are all more sensitive to some things than others—and mine is connection and separation. Some from temperament and some from history—but the combination makes me who I am. And now I have to figure out how to befriend my reluctant self and not be angry at her or frustrated with her.

Many years ago when I was studying mindfulness meditation I read a piece that talked about using the breath as a way to learn to say hello and goodbye. How you take in breath and say hello, and you breathe out and say good-bye. I haven’t thought about that in a long time, but it came back to me this week because I have been thinking about the smaller transitions—the micro-transitions we have to make all the time. Getting up, going to sleep, arriving home or leaving home for small errands, going to a different room. Even small transitions can throw me off and I can lose focus—looking for something to read on my phone or computer. Looking for a snack or a cup of tea. Looking, I think, for certainty when the transition has made me feel wobbly.

And that’s when an old line from Mary Oliver floated back to me. “They don’t even know they have wings.” The line is from a poem called ‘This Morning’ where she is describing baby birds in a nest. They haven’t opened their eyes yet and their mouths are wide open chirping for food— “more, more, more.” The baby birds are made up of intense need and they can’t meet that need for themselves—so the only thing they know how to do is cling to the nest.

And yet, they don’t even know they have wings.

And what I can’t feel in those moments right before or during the beginning of transitions is that I have wings. Wings I have built. Wings I can trust. I can make the shift and my wings will indeed carry me. And, then the challenge is realizing that having wings is bittersweet. Because those wings can carry you forward. And they will.

© 2024 Gretchen L Schmelzer, PhD

Felicity: Poems

By Oliver, Mary

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A Simple Sacred Pilgrimage

“Some prized the pilgrimage,
wrapping themselves in new white linen

to ride buses across miles of vacant sand.
When they arrived at Mecca

they would circle the holy places,
on foot, many times…

While for certain cousins and grandmothers
the pilgrimage occurred daily,
lugging water from the spring
or balancing the baskets of grapes.
”

— Naomi Shihab Nye “Different Ways to Pray”

Every year, in the week leading up to the anniversary of when I started therapy, I dig out my day planner from that year and stare at the page where I wrote the appointment down. I stare at my handwriting. I stare at the name written in its slot. For that appointment and the appointment the following week I wrote out her first and last name in full. But after that, for the rest of the appointments from then on, it would be just her first name written in, and then eventually even that shifted to just an initial.

But that first week, my handwriting with her name sits in a busy week typical of my psychology training at the time—days that went from 6 am to 10 pm, and the meeting, like all good shrines in pilgrimages of old, was a miracle. The meeting was offered in the only free hour I had in the week. That open slot stood glittering and was filled with the unknown.

“A pilgrimage is a ‘devotional practice consisting of a prolonged journey… toward a specific destination of significance.”

The act of finding the day planner is one of the simple pilgrimages I make each year—not in physical distance, but instead across time. A chance to connect myself now to the person I was then. A chance to revisit the fear I had and the courage it took to start that journey. The chance to see where I am now and the patience it still takes to weave all the pieces together.

A pilgrimage…

“ “is an inherently transient experience, removing the participant from his or her home environment and identity. The means or motivations in undertaking a pilgrimage might vary, but the act, however performed, blends the physical and the spiritual into a unified experience.”

— National Trust, UK

That one sacred spot in my day planner from years ago marks an ending and a beginning. And it marks a place where there is a clear before and clear after. It marks a place where someone believed in me and the me-that-could heal—and me-that-could-become-whole long before I could. It marks a place where I borrowed enough of that belief to set off on an inherently transient and truly sacred journey. And so my yearly pilgrimage to find the day planner and stare at the handwritten name lets me witness the start of the voyage again—the day I set sail—and remind myself of what that fear felt like, and what that bravery felt like—in near equal measure.

Small pilgrimages, simple pilgrimages, daily pilgrimages—these are the things that I use to ground myself—and connect to myself and something bigger whenever I can. When I work in NYC I make pilgrimages to the same gardens during every trip to see what flowers are blooming. I make trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to visit the same paintings. And when I work in DC I try to visit the Jefferson Memorial to read the inscription that I memorized at 10.

And wherever I have lived, I have created daily pilgrimages to paths, gardens and nature: checking on the growth of the flowers, the changing of the leaves—the level of the water in the river. Pilgrimages are check-ins. They are a chance to say hello to something—to greet something as a stranger—to see that thing again, both as something familiar –and as something new.

A pilgrimage, practiced, no matter how small, is a chance to see the sacred in the ordinary— to see the newest growth in yourself and a chance to greet yourself as a long lost friend.

© 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Different ways to pray: Poems

By Nye, Naomi Shihab

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The Sacredness of Beginnings

“If we are to have a culture as resilient and competent in the face of necessity as it needs to be, then it must somehow involve within itself a ceremonious generosity toward the wilderness of natural force and instinct. The farm must yield a place to the forest, not as a wood lot, or even as a necessary agricultural principle but as a sacred grove - a place where the Creation is let alone, to serve as instruction, example, refuge; a place for people to go, free of work and presumption, to let themselves alone.”

— Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Many years ago on a walk in the woods—I was caught off guard and was suddenly standing still- four feet from beauty. A young doe somehow missed my coming down the path in the woods and froze solid only feet away from me. She was nearly within arms reach. I was walking my dog and because the deer was so still, he didn’t notice her. The doe and I made eye contact. Her ears twitched. And I stood still for a moment between two creatures whose instincts were at odds with each other. Run towards and run away.  I took in as much as I could, though it was only moments. And then I had to move on before the dog and the deer recognized each other.

And I think that is how it is with all new things in our lives—we come upon them suddenly—we barely recognize them in the mix of all we are looking at. And when we stop, we can see clearly. The new thing staring at us, requiring us to be still and quiet just to see it.

But it’s just not that easy. We try to observe the new thing and meanwhile at the end of our leash are the old habits, the old instincts and a constant familiar tug toward what we know—what has felt comfortable—what wants to continue. What wants to chase that new thing away because the quiet and stillness and openness required to let it in is just too scary—too unknown.

Growth requires these moments of stillness and anticipation. Of simply not-knowing. Growth requires that you can be lost between these two states of yourself—the old and new, your inner hound and the young deer, and just be still for a moment. This state of in-between is so necessary, and so unsupported by our culture. Even for the healthiest, happiest among us, this is not an easy place to find or to stay. Our culture wants to fill that place with things, with achievement, with judgments and busy-ness. If you take the time to do nothing in order to sort out what your next move or idea is, you will likely find yourself feeling badly for ‘not getting anything done.” Our dayplanners and calendars have slots for every hour which imply that every hour must be equally productive. But it just doesn’t work that way. Especially with beginnings.

And if you have a history of trauma or significant loss, beginnings can be even harder. Trauma is about being overwhelmed and caught off guard—and so the precious open state of beginning—the quiet, still place that is necessary for growth—doesn’t feel nourishing, it usually feels terrifying. Trauma survivors hate to be caught off guard, so rather than actually taking in what is new, they anticipate the old, scary experience of the past—even if it is nowhere near them, even if it is long gone. Better to know what is coming, even if it is bad, than be surprised.

And this is why healing from trauma is so important—not just because you want to heal the wounds of the past—but because healing allows you to grow again. It allows you to have a new relationship to beginnings, to openness, to growth. This healing can take a long time—and even when the terror or fear has subsided, you will still struggle with the newness of the experience, with the feeling of being lost in the unknown.

Most beginnings don’t look like much at all. Like the doe, they blend in to their surroundings so perfectly you almost miss them. The beginning of a trail head for most hiking trails are not easy to spot—they are a break between trees, maybe a rock outcropping, nothing more. Which is why beginnings need our help. They need our attention and care.

The thing about growth is that it happens in cycles, think circles and not lines. Beginnings don’t stand out at the front of anything, they happen after endings. Beginnings are really an 'in-between.' The beginning of a butterfly happens in-between the caterpillar and the butterfly. The beginning of the frog happens in-between the tadpole and the frog. Beginnings are easy to miss because we expect to be somewhere else.

So beginnings need our respect.  There will be time ahead for the hard work and gratification of moving forward—for seeing things get done. There will be plenty of time for the challenges that you can see and share and wrestle with. But in order for all of that to happen: you need to be able to be still. To honor and witness the young and innocent as it appears in our life over and over. To trust the experience of not-knowing long enough to find the ‘new.’  And they need our protection. We need to protect the forest of quiet so the new can show up. We need to protect the hours in our day where we can integrate what was finished and allow the new beginning.

© 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD

Caring for our Tender and Growing Fires in the New Year

I made a fire tonight, as I did last night in the house where I am staying with friends. The fire brings light and coziness to a mostly grey few days where I am in New England. It’s a lovely small woodstove and though I have years of camping and practice building fires it often takes a bit of patience and a lot of newpaper to get the damp wood and kindling to start. It seems like fire has such power and yet in starting the fire I am always reminded of really, how slow things can be to catch on.

It's a useful thing to ponder here at the new year. We have big ideas and big hopes and goals for the new year. Our world has big challenges and problems and there is so much energy swirling. It seems like the fire of a new and good idea is enough to get us going—but we need more than that for the idea—the hope—the goal—the vision—to really catch on.

Whatever our fire is: we need to feed it and tend it. We need to watch its beginnings carefully and not let ourselves pile so much on to it that it puts our flame out. And not give it so little to go on that it burns too quickly. How to tend the fire of what is important to us—how to tend the fire of what we want to grow or change?

I think the challenge comes from thinking that we can do without giving it little bits of encouragement. In not wanting to believe we need more of something to make that change. I’m not sure where this comes from. But our culture has a nearly pathological need to do things with the least amount of support.  I could even feel it building the fire tonight –Do you really need to add more newspaper? Couldn’t you have built this fire without that?

Increments of care. Increments of time. Repetition. Small acts that add up.

For example, I have been working to write ten minutes a day. I had been working and traveling and fallen out of my usual practice and I needed a way back. I needed the kindling, the newspaper, to ignite my writing fire again. And so recently I have been sitting with my coffee, and setting the timer on my watch for ten minutes and writing. That’s the newspaper. That’s the kindling. The writing isn’t the fire. It’s the kindling. It’s not about producing anything in particular.  Or writing something for anyone to read. It’s the small act of what’s needed to feed and tend my fire.

And the tending doesn’t stop, even once the fire is going— a fire needs ongoing attention. Does it need more wood? Does it need more air? And even, is it time for this particular fire to go out? Or am continuing to feed it because I don’t know what else to do?

And understanding this is not just important for ourselves-- it’s also important for our relationships and communities. It’s about tending the fires of care wherever we can. Whether it’s with ourselves—or with others. Indeed, as I was writing this piece, the fire began to get low, and one of my friends added the needed log to keep it going. We have different perspectives and views: sometimes we see what needs to be tended, even when others can’t.

Rumi famously said that we should set ourselves on fire and seek out those who would fan our flames. And I think we all need to turn this one around—what are we doing to fan the flames of others? What kindling or newspaper do they need? Can we sit patiently with them while the dreams, ideas and hopes catch fire? Can we see the embers burning and help them reignite what’s important?

Fires require patience and attendance: the act of attending fully, non-judgmentally, openly. Paying close attention to what is actually needed. (Not what you think you should need—or what you think someone else should need). But what is actually needed in this moment to keep that flame burning—to keep the fire going.

And the acts are small and incremental. Your fires, their fires, our fires need more small things: more ten minute walks and moments of mindfulness. More kind words to ourselves and others. More check-in phone calls and dropping off muffins. More stopping and really listening when someone is talking. More returning the grocery cart even if its not yours.

And it doesn’t always happen right away. Sometimes it can take a while to ignite—even when the fire is going. You can put a log on, you can do some action and it looks like nothing is happening. Or worse—you’ve put it out. But look to the corners. Look for a flicker. Look at the embers. You can see where the fire has caught. You can feed it if necessary---or fan the flames. Or you can take a deep breath and trust in the fire you are tending.

© 2024 Gretchen L. Schmelzer, PhD