Growing up is hard
How time gives us an opportunity to reflect and identify moments of resilience
Contemplations
When you think about the major milestones in your life, how does this moment — right now — fit into the greater context of your life?
Can you find where resilience showed up in each of those milestones?
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I went down a YouTube rabbit hole two nights ago and found an incredible interview about how Billie Eilish and FINNEAS created their Oscar-nominated song “What Was I Made For?”. (If you’re a huge creative process/music nerd like me, trust me when I say it’s totally worth the 18 minutes of your life.)
At the end of the interview, almost in an after thought, Billie and FINNEAS talk about growing up, how we’re constantly evolving, no matter what age you are — a striking commentary from two artists who buck the stereotype that wisdom comes only with age. FINNEAS then says one of the most zen things in the final moments of the interview:
“When you grow and when you change, it’s sort of inherently an identity crisis, that sort of metamorphosis as a person — which is the most cathartic and important part of living your life and aging is also this devastating experience and puts you in crisis.
“Growing up doesn’t stop when you turn 18 or reach the height that you’re gonna be the rest of your life. Growing up is just lived experience continuing to wash over you like waves on a beach until you’re worn smooth like beach glass and then you die.”
After a tumultuous week, where I was anticipating and mentally preparing myself for some heartbreaking lows, only to be relieved and given incredible highs, FINNEAS’ words really struck me. As I have shared the ups and downs with friends, they’ve done the same, and there seems to be this larger understanding that this is just simply life washing over us, like FINNEAS said.
I recently decided to go back to school to pursue a Masters in Social Work to keep on finding ways to provide mental health services to underserved communities — something that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has witnessed my spiritual and healing journey these last few years. As I’ve gone through the application process, I can’t help but feel incredibly old. (Just going through listing out my work history triggers the arthritis in my knees!) I have lived many lifetimes in this life, in this body, as I’m sure you all have, too. It has been an interesting exercise to think about not just why I want to do this work, but how did I get to this point? What are all the things and decisions that had to be made for me to be where I am in this very moment in time? What are all the things and decisions that had to happen for you to be exactly where you are — reading this right now with me.
Not to be all Buddhist about it but…
This prompt has reminded me of an exercise I did years ago at another transitional time in my life (with Coach Miriam Meima) where we had to draw out a timeline of the biggest moments in our life. It’s such an interesting exercise, seeing what matters, what you remember, what your relationship is now with this particular moment. It really forces you to zoom out.
Often when I’m in the weeds, or in“production mode”, I get hyperfocused and can’t see beyond what’s right in front of me. This zooming out helps me see how this moment, no matter how excruciatingly overwhelming it feels, will just be a dot within the larger constellation of my life. It is this zooming out, this stepping back that creates a snap, a break, a breath that gives me enough space to remember that even though I might not be able to see beyond what’s right in front me, I know there is something beyond this moment and that it won’t always be this way.
This timeline exercise gives me the same somatic experience I’ve had when I am in big open, vast spaces at night, looking up at the stars. Whether it’s Joshua Tree, West Texas, or my own backyard in the Western Catskills, seeing and feeling how I am just a small spec in the grandiose, beautiful Universe suddenly makes my shit feel so much smaller.
What a beautiful reminder.
And what an amazing practice — to look at something so wide, that It helps you get back to the small.
This zooming out helps move us towards what Buddhists call equanimity — that balance, that building of capacity, of resilience, that allows us to hold the many things that life throws at us. It is the active choice that no matter how many highs and lows we go through, we are still finding a space to be. It is in this space that we are also able to find light, joy, peace, ease, with the full knowing that we cannot go through life with just the good, that bypassing creates more suffering not just for you but everyone around you.
This is of course is reflected in the first of the Four Noble Truths that suffering exists and it’s here to stay, so how can we live our lives better navigating and being with it? Because it ain’t going away, folks!
So back to FINNEAS.
I love this image of a rock being washed away, of our suffering being released, transformed, gently back into the cosmos, until we are sea glass — iridescent, smooth, translucent, and one again with all the elements that made us who we are, who we will be, and who we always have been.
Please note that all audio used in the article voiceover is copyright and owned by VEVO and Vanity Fair.
Meditation
For paid subscribers, here is customized meditation to help you dive deeper into this week’s topic and to practice zooming out. Thank you for your support!