Originally published 7/24/2014
I am a person who hates the process of change, that inevitable stage where there is chaos and mess- the time we spend “in the hallway”. I am a systems person and I love to organize the flow for projects, I actually like accounting and reconcile my accounts each month, I am the person who gets grumpy when the clippers aren’t placed back where they belong. How is it that I am the one called to not only support transformation and change, but has a desire to create it?
I have experienced many transformations in my life and know how I have experienced each time of chaos and messiness. I loved the saying; “When one door closes, another door opens, but it’s hell in the hallway.” I used to think it was a Helen Keller quote, but I don’t find any attribution to anyone, so I guess it’s just a saying. I loved the saying because my experience of the hallway was HELL, I suffered, I grieved, I liked to share the saying so that others knew my pain.
At the same time, I love change and have done; therapy, spiritual work and been in 12 step programs, all to help me be able to transform. In my business management career I wanted to be involved in organizational change projects because it was all about new and different instead of remaining the same.
Our callings are often paved by personal experience. I spent my 20’s petrified of change, controlling anything that was “messy”, avoiding any extremes of emotion, I didn’t expose myself to anything that would shift my status quo. No change, no transformation, all in the name of being “safe”. It almost killed me physically and I was certainly dead spiritually. Everything frightened me. I became such a basket case that my menstrual periods stopped. It became a life not worth living.
In my hopelessness I snuck to church and came across a prayer in by Catherine Marshall, in which she prays to God, “You have told us that without vision, we (people) perish.”… “I see that this may involve adventures I have not bargained for. But I know that habit patterns that seem like cozy nests from the inside, from Your vantage point may be prison cells.” That small prayer was a clear invitation for change in my life. The resulting change was profound and shifted me into being a new person. That hallway experience was exhilarating because I felt so bathed in glory, my heart sung Amazing Grace. Every door that opened was exciting. I came to know how blessed we can be when we let go of control and allow transformation.
With that experience I fell in love with change.
I have had many other experiences of transformation since and although I had that one amazing experience it did not mean that I suddenly found it pleasant. I was willing to have it happen but I could still hate it. I tell everyone that any chaos is worth experiencing to get to the other side. I believe that my life is a miracle and I know what is possible when I let myself walk down the hall and move through it! But I still hate it, and complain about it, and get emotional, and feel deep grief and MAKE the hallway into HELL.
Unfortunately I only recently discovered that I was the one making it into hell. I admit that I am an emotional person. (This will be considered an understatement by those who know me.) I don’t have to change that about myself. I guess maybe this post is about how to be an emotional person with good boundaries? The trick that I have found is that I don’t have to experience the chaos of change as “hell”. I can feel everything and let it go. I can keep my focus on being through the other doorway. I can still experience joy, and love, and play, and faith.
There is a reason I am writing this right now in my life. I am trying to remind myself how much I believe it. For me the last 4 years has been the longest hallway. Door after door closed and because I knew this was being “spirit led” I expected the other doors to fly open. But they haven’t. And I am learning to not make this hallway hell. It’s embarrassing to say that I am still learning when it is something I am called to teach. I have had to teach myself over and over and I hope that now I “have it”. While I am still waiting for the doors to open; I feel joy, I am content. I feel lots of things, loneliness, sorrow, boredom, over-challenged, and faith.
Faith because I KNOW that once I go through the door that is finally opened for me I will find more than I would have designed for myself. Every time I am willing to let go and walk in that hallway no matter how long it is, it is worth it and I am blessed.
Being in hell is a choice not a truth. Let’s make this the saying, “When one door closes another opens and the wait in the hallway is worth it.” May you experience the miracle of change and find the hallway worthwhile.