As I start on the transition back from sabbatical, I want to reflect a little on the lessons I have learned through this year and then I will finish this blog in September

The kick-off event for sabbatical last year was a 24 hour bike ride to raise money for cancer research and patient support.  This morning, one year and one lifetime later, I find myself again in Indianapolis riding with my friends from Team Collin.  I am a different person.  Sabbatical has change me profoundly.

I went for a bike ride the other day. I had planned to ride about 40 miles, but it was a beautiful sunny day so I struck out down an unfamiliar route and ended up going about 50 miles and then decided I was tired and would take the bus the rest of the way home. So I was sitting on the bus bench, eating the last snack that I had brought with me when I realized I didn’t have my wallet so I had no money or my bus pass. I was 25 miles from home. I probably could have talked the bus driver into letting me get on the bus but instead, I put my helmet back on and got back on the bike because one of the first lessons I learned on sabbatical is that the real ride doesn’t start until that moment when I am ready for it to be over.

I first learned this lesson emotionally when I gave up all my possessions last year and left Seattle. I was almost paralyzed by fear and wishing I had never decided to go on this crazy adventure. Facing the fear of traveling alone, meeting people who I didn’t know in countries where I didn’t speak the language, travelling with no plans and no reservations, no safety net when something happened, having to make decisions on the fly not knowing if the outcome would be positive or not, I just wanted the ride to end. I wanted to stay home in the safety of the apartment I had lived for the last 3 years. The reality was, I was in a holding pattern, stagnating personally and professionally and needed to make a huge change. That change truly began when I let myself face the challenges, pushed myself physically, intellectually and emotionally further than I ever thought I could go in my life. In the words of the great TerryB, “It is easier to stay in the dysfunction you are in than it is to do the work needed to have the life you want.”   Changes won’t come by just doing the same thing you have been doing over and over and expecting a different result. They happen when you move into the discomfort.

Physically, intellectually, and emotionally, growth and learning happen when people are pushed out of their comfort zone. There is new research that says that physically, if you do the same exercise at the same intensity without varying it that at some point, your body stops responding. You won’t lose ground on your fitness but you won’t gain it either. As I teacher, I have always known from my own learning and by watching my students struggle that intellectual learning is hard work. Think back to your biggest life lessons, did you learn them because you did something perfectly or because you had to struggle through difficulty? Our greatest challenges give us our biggest lessons. Learning isn’t for the faint of heart. And emotional growth may be the hardest of all. We only grow emotionally when we are pushed beyond the limits of what we thought we could endure.

Seven years ago, I was pushed out of my emotional comfort zone when the man I married and loved with all my heart walked out on me without warning. I was pushed out of my comfort zone again when my father and sister died. And then my when my therapist, who was helping me through all of that, entered into an inappropriate relationship with me. Those situations pushed me to the brink of emotional collapse. However, those events also were the catalysts of the most profound transformation of my life. I wouldn’t wish for them to happen again, but I will not regret where they have brought me.

They call events like that life-altering. The reason for that name is because they actually alter your life (yeah I know that conclusion wasn’t rocket science). The event where you do the same thing every day for 25 years or respond the same way every time you have a conflict isn’t “life-altering”. There are so many people who I listen to who tell me they want to make a change in their lives, they aren’t happy with their circumstances….they aren’t happy in their marriage, with their job, the direction their life is going, etc. The way to change that is simple and yet, at the same time, extraordinarily difficult. If you want to make a change in your life, the only way to do it is to create your life-altering moment. There is no other way. It is at that point of change, that point of discomfort that you are ready for whatever is bothering you in your life to be over, that moment when you are ready for the ride to be over…. that is the moment where the real ride and the hard work begins.

My sabbatical lesson and take-away is that I have learned to appreciate that emotional discomfort that comes in difficult and challenging situations because I know it precipitates learning and growth. That doesn’t mean I like it, but I understand what is about to happen, change is going to occur, life is being divided by zero. I might whine about it still, but the whining is just noise, it isn’t life-stalling paralysis. All of life is embraced, every moment is cherished. The places where I am struggling the most are where the real work needs to happen.

A great analogy to this: You don’t keep repaving a smoothly paved road, you fix the road with the potholes on it. It is the same with your life, you fix the parts that are broken, you don’t just stay on the same smooth path. Life gets interesting on those side roads. And if you never take them, sooner or later life will throw up a detour and you will have no choice but to be forced down the side road. You need to fix the pot holes on those side roads before they become big enough to swallow your vehicle and keep your life stuck in one place.

So this weekend, I get to hang out with my friends, ride some bikes, raise a little money to kick cancer’s ass. I am a different woman than I was when I was here a year ago. On the road of my life and the development of a new identity, I have fewer pot holes, more miles of paved smooth road, I am stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally than I have been in a very long time.