Have you ever come across a book that came into your life at exactly right moment with the exact message and insights you needed? I have. It seems for me, books are my most faithful and constant mentors. I can’t count the number of times at critical junctures of my life, how the Universe, with characteristic serendipity, has brought my attention to exactly the right book at exactly the right time, a time when I was facing indecision, confusion and challenges with respect to the next step of my life and career journey.
For the past month I have felt very stuck. I know things are happening and moving beneath the surface and I sensed the Universe/God/the Transcendent (whatever you want to refer to as your source of direction and guidance in this crazy old world of ours) was on the move. I have known for quite some months that I am entering a new phase of my career, one of convergence, where all my previous experiences, knowledge and skills have prepared me for a new and exciting phase in my career and personal life. I have felt such a sense of anticipation.
But then, the last couple months even though I have proactively pursued this avenue and that avenue, talked to this recruiter and that recruiter, explored many different networking opportunities and met a bunch of new people, and sought and applied for a few new interim jobs, there almost complete and absolute utter radio silence—crickets as as they say. People weren’t responding to my emails. One recruiter I really thought I had connected with didn’t return my emails or calls for over two months! No job adverts looked appealing and friends who I had made myself vulnerable to and had emailed for advice didn’t answer my emails for weeks if at all! Meanwhile, I felt as though all the pain of a previous situation that I thought I had forgiven and had left behind was being publicly rubbed in my face . What the heck! I thought I had forgiven what had happened and those who failed me and myself for my own failures. I thought I had learned all the lessons I had needed to learn from it and I thought I had moved past the hurt, pain and utter sense of failure I experienced as a result of my inability to make the situation work.
Then out of the blue, my sister who rarely spontaneously calls me texted to say she wanted to talk to me and we set up a transatlantic face time call to chat about a new adventure of hers. As we finished the conversation, she asked about what was going on in my life. Then she told me about an author I should read, Henry Cloud. She recommended two other books of his which I also bought, but I ended up buying and devouring his book on Necessary Endings first: the one book she hadn’t recommended but which had caught my eye whilst ordering the others online.
I think what drew me to the book is that I have been struggling with some endings that I had very consciously and deliberately made months ago but was still struggling to reconcile and integrate into my life. The pain of a previous situation that I consciously ended after much reflection, tears, angst and reproach, was still causing me pain and it was difficult for me to move on, especially in terms of my emotions. The book talks about proactively ending aspects of our work life or relationships. He talks about how in order for individuals or businesses to grow and flourish, a person or a manager or a Chief Executive of a company has to prune things like relationships, business lines, or employees.
He talks about pruning rose bushes. He talks first about pruning dead branches that get in the way of future growth, about diseased branches that are sick and not productive and finally, about good rose buds that aren’t the best rose buds. All these, even the good rose buds, have to go, in order for the rose bush to be able to nourish and produce the best rose buds and the most productive and gloriously flourishing rosebush possible. It reminded me that even the good, as I often teach and advise people whom I’ve consulted for when doing strategic planning, is often the enemy of the best. We can pursue a lot of good things in our life, but if we pursue too many of them, we lose focus.
I think this was one part of the problem. I was pursuing too many good things and wasn’t focusing in on the things I knew I was meant to do right now. One of them involves writing a book which has been on my mind to write now for years. I needed to prune out activities that didn’t contribute to writing the book, or else my time would end up being squandered on things that don’t result in the word tally mounting up!
His discussion about cutting off dead and diseased branches also hit home. It confirmed my decision months ago to bring a certain situation to an end. In some ways it didn’t make sense at the time. But, I had given it my best shot and had used all my resources and energy to effect change only to see toxic patterns reassert themselves. My resilience was at an all time low and I was developing chronic insomnia and my health was suffering. The situation was literally sucking the life out of me, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically. According to Cloud these are all telling signs that it’s time to end something! The book helped, like a good coach or mentor would, to help reaffirm that I had acted rightly and courageously, because it also takes great courage to end situations, good, bad, diseased or dead, well. It’s too easy to sit back and keep trying or just accustoming oneself to the pain and toxicity and normalizing it (think of women who stay in domestic abuse relationships way beyond the point they should). So yay, I wasn’t a failure, I had made the right decision for me at that time and given those circumstances.
Cloud doesn’t use the word forgiveness, but I think it is also part of being able to move from the past fruitfully into the future as well. Forgiving yourself for failures (real and perceived), forgiving colleagues and friends for not being supportive in the ways and times when you needed them, learning and integrating all the positive and negative lessons learned from the situation and mourning and grieving the loss of status, income, or friendships that a particular job or relationship afforded you.
It is not an easy process. and as I have found to my intense annoyance and frustration, it doesn’t happen overnight! It can take months or years which doesn’t sit well in today’s fast paced society. It’s part of both letting go of the past, but also of integrating the experiences, positive and negative, and the losses, into who you are now so that it can form part of who you’re becoming and so that it can also form part of the future.
There is no doubt my identity has been impacted by the situation and it’s only by letting go of the dross, mourning the past, realizing the future will never recapture the past and the futility of trying to recapture it, that I can integrate the experience fully and move on.
After having taken about a week to work through the book, today,has finally been a more exciting day full of possibilities. I’m still not there yet, but my brain is no longer frozen in the past with unresolved resentments, but instead it is flowing with ideas and plans and possibilities for new connections! How funny! I probably needed the radio silence because I needed to struggle and work through this and while people can cheer and comfort, they can’t do the work for you! That doesn’t mean I won’t need to cycle through the forgiveness process again, it is a process and I imagine events will conspire a few more times to rub salt in the wound which is still healing.
What situations do you need to prune? Are there good things that are getting in the way of the best and clouding your focus? Are there bad or diseased branches that need to be cut off. What endings do you need to make?