One metaphor used for our lives is that of a journey. Sometimes we can get insights when we travel, on a plane, in a car or simply walking. A journey can help us understand the changes we are experiencing in our life. It can have three parts: a beginning, an ending, and a neutral zone. It can be seen as a rite of passage, a movement from one period to another in our lives.
Often we think of change as setting out, a new beginning, but to do so jumps over the other two necessary and important components. Often setting out starts easily, or is prompted by new encounters or a change in circumstances. However, it is strangely in in the neutral zone that we can go through feelings such as loss, doubt, anxiety and confusion that we are most vulnerable, and yet unexpectedly most open to creative growth. We need to trust the process of the journey, to believe that it will lead to a new place. Not always the destination we imagined at the start. However, the only way to learn about life is to explore.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
