Mind Splash: On Developmental Aspects of Transition

Mind splash is what I call that flood of ideas that are beyond a flash. A mind splash is a thought or idea with enough gravity to create sustained ripples. It is an idea that is expansive in many directions. I hope this blog space creates connections and conversations that lead to ripples in the world beyond this page. However, this particular series is different because it is mind splashing; ideas are less formed, in their early stages like a random rock thrown in a body of water just to see what happens.

I expect my understanding to change a lot with feedback over time, and I welcome feedback on any or all of this writing, either in the comments section, in person, via email, even beyond direct contact with me—in communications that I may never know happen. I encourage and hope for whatever agreement, disagreement, or expanding occurs. The following is a piece that is helping me begin to put more words to a topic of great interest and is my thesis for my graduate program.

This particular blog entry is the beginning of the connections I see between transitions/transformations and human development.

Development, even in our regressions and mistakes, is a continuum, spectrum, spiral even, that does not cease. Physical and emotional development, certainly, are continuous and ever shifting and changing even throughout a day of experiences. As we take the world in and engage beyond ourselves, we create unique physical and emotional dynamics that move us along developmentally, even if we are not fully aware while they are happening. As we encounter difficulties, sometimes trauma, gaps in our development of the mind, body, spirit, or soul can occur. These gaps and traumas also come along for the ride or journey; and if we are lucky, we can fill these gaps with the resources we encounter for our own healing. 

Perhaps, if we have any remnants from our lives before this one, we carry those potentials with us, too, while inhabiting this particular space, time, and vessel of our current incarnation. Certainly, we carry with us the epigenetic information from our biological ancestors regardless of how much we know in detail about the people whose shoulder we stand upon. In one way or another, this ancestral line calls us forward. It seems there are endless potentialities to fulfill or stunt with regard to our awareness around our genetic influences. How these potentials manifest within the context of a lifetime is a fascinating, complex, system of interactions and dynamics. 

Development happens one way or another, and it seems that it is our choice about whether or not we will be engaged and awake to those changes. If we choose to cling by our fingernails to the cliff’s edge of what is no longer serving us, then we will likely experience the symptoms of that choice (physical pains, chronic conditions, emotional imbalances, spiritual stagnation, relationship difficulties). If we choose to awaken to the whole experience, see what is hard to see, uncomfortable to feel (growing pains), and leap or at least tentatively step into the liminal space of possibility, we might develop in ways beyond what we can immediately imagine.  

Development, as I experience and see it, is the small and large transformations we make each moment, day, and year of our lives. These transitions are about our willingness or unwillingness to let go of what no longer works. A teenager cannot truly cling to the body that has already outgrown childhood, but holding onto childish perspectives or letting them go so we can see from a new vantage point are both a choice. Sometimes, it is the discomfort of the symptoms from our clinging that create a momentum or desperation pushing us toward development. This is probably true more of the time than not, actually. 

Acknowledging or creating rites of passage for these major transitions support us in our development, make the clinging not so necessary and the letting go not so scary. These supports enable us to meet potentials without being encumbered by so many barriers. Supports in the form of people (dead or alive), practices, belief systems, and structural systems hold us as we take the leap into the unknown liminal space to discover what we will incorporate into our new way of being. 

We live in a culture that does not fully appreciate and often inhibits change and development. As a society, we prohibit and discourage change of the status quo because it is so uncomfortable for us to experience in ourselves and others. We fear losing power and control. When someone we love changes, the relationship between us changes too. We are inextricably connected in ways that make one person’s development tied to others—posing a choice and a threat to a way of being. This also means that when one person chooses to participate in their own development, it carries a momentum that makes it easier for another person to make that choice too. 

I am deeply wondering about this kind of momentum and its potential to shift our society into one that appreciates, supports, and offers opportunities for change.