Nuance as a path to becoming

Growth isn't easy for me, nor is it for most of us. I see this reality threaded through my work with companies who are at the messy intersection of transition and identity.

The last few years have held clusters of significant changes, and many times equilibrium has flown out the window. Balance? What's that? Deep breathing? All the time.

But the other morning I had a moment in the shower, and the proverbial windows of heaven opened and I felt grounded again.

Belonging and unbelonging: A necessary dichotomy

Several years ago I chose to leave an unhealthy marriage.

This decision was at odds with the norms in my family. My mother was silent in her upset, my siblings kind but at their distance. I felt terribly alone, in a country and town so far from home. Choosing to belong to myself came at the cost of unbelonging in many other circles.

I was talking with a sibling about the consequences of my subsequent decisions and the impact in their family. I'd created a predicament for them: the kids looked up to me, but how to tell them of my decisions that, to them, represented a fall from grace.

"Well, perhaps this is a time to teach the kids about nuance," I offered.

"There is no nuance," my sibling said.

I froze at the finality of this.

I wanted to explain. To tell them about the very long process, the many turns and seasons, the insights and learnings, and how there were still so many loose ends that frightened me. But my desire to be understood shrank in light of their hard line.

Clarity came on the drive home.

We've all had to face the reality that another is a sovereign being we can't control. My sibling's children would grow up and separate. They'd be exposed to the complexities of life and have to make their own decisions. God forbid they follow in their aunt's steps.

What then?

Do you love the other even if you don't agree? And to what extent are you willing to walk with the other when you don't agree? What would this require of you?

A moment in the shower

Standing beneath the falling water, my heart ached over the predicament I'd put my family in. I longed for my nieces and nephews; I wanted to be in their lives but had little control over that.

And then out of the blue, this thought:

If God created humanity with the ability to decide, God was willing to open up to pain as well.

Because it was never about the perfection of "right doing", but rather the process of becoming.

And there and then I saw: we mirror the divine when we embrace the tensions of complexity, with all the turmoil of great suffering and great love...

It's hard to find the strength to hold the tensions that allow us "to become". Black-and-white is so much easier. If you do this, you're right, and that means you're "in". If you do that, you're wrong, and that means you're "out". Allowing for nuance means allowing for an infinite number of subtleties. That feels scary because it feels so uncertain, and you may find yourself alone on that path.

But in the messiness of uncertainty, there can be communion with the divine. A reassuring solidarity that can root and ground.

And in all of this, a becoming.

About me: I'm getting better at loving those messy, uncertain places inside myself. And I love helping companies grow through their transitions to find a collective identity that reflects who they're becoming.