After everything falls apart, there is still more life.
Back in April 2020 I sent the kind of meandering email to everyone in my contact list that would only be acceptable in the late ‘90s or immediately after a catastrophe.
I was hoping, in those early days of quarantine, to check on my friends and family, so I invited people to take yoga with me over Zoom. Over time, this weekly “yoga email” turned into something else. I wrote about echolocation, The Queen's Gambit, attachment styles, and confederate monuments in Richmond.
And then, I stopped.
Here’s what happened. It was the week of the Jan 6th attack on the US Capitol and for the first time in a year, I didn't have words. I started to experience a low hum of fear that everything is going to keep getting worse until I die.
But then, there’s Station Eleven. And Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. And Leonard Bernstein conducting Beethoven’s 9th at the Brandenburg Gates in 1989 Berlin. And my clients and friends who have, in dramas just as cinematic, experienced tectonic plate-shifting change: the kind of metamorphosis where every molecule inside of you feels like it’s dissolving and turning you into a formless blob.
Until, at some point, you just start re-organize. Into the you who is on the other side.
Because after everything falls apart, there is still more life.
When I was in my early thirties, I called experiences like these, “blowing up your life,” perhaps because I, in my early 30’s, blew up my life. As a coach and therapist, I still witness dramatic life blow-ups and traumatic loss. But I’m coming to realize that some of my clients are quietly engulfed in big inner reckonings that are just as overwhelming, even if the casual observer would only notice them as "going through something weird."
The psychologist Fritz Perls describes the change process as a progression through “layers”: If you aren’t into frameworks, you can skip the part below and just watch this.
Games Layer – Something about the way your life is organized isn’t working, but you’re either not aware of it or choosing to ignore it.
Impasse – The situation has become intolerable, but you haven’t made the change. Imagine standing at the edge of a high-dive, but can’t decide if you should jump or walk back down from the platform. Your knees buckle as you look down. It’s the most unpleasant stage, and it’s usually when people start coaching or therapy. Some people spend their lives moving back and forth between Games and Impasse.
Death Layer – You jump. Or some event in life (the loss of a loved one, a layoff, a public failure) pushes you off the high-dive. Bluntly put, it is the death of a former self.
Life Layer – The person on the other side. It’s not always easier, at least not at first, but it is clearer. Over time, this new version of life feels less raw, and more like, well, you. You can be in life layer for years, until another big, you-shifting change.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is a show where all of the major characters start out in games layer – they enact caricatures of 1950’s America: bread-winning fathers, housewives ready with a cocktail in hand and brisket on the table by 6:00. The most deadly war in global history had just ended; the Jewish family in this show had just experienced a genocide, but it’s almost never mentioned. Instead, the family, like the rest of post-war America, plays out a relentless version of normality.
As the show progresses, each character goes through the change process; some are pushed off the high-dive and into death layer, like the main character Miriam, whose husband leaves her in the first episode. This unintentionally catalyzes Miriam’s career as a stand-up comic, which would have been unthinkable to her former self. Others, like her father Abe, spend several seasons in impasse before they surprise everyone with a swan dive through death layer, and into life.
What I love about this show (I mean, the costumes). But what else I love about this show is that it’s one of the rare pieces of culture that explores what happens after death layer. The financial consequences of making a big change in your life. The new relationships that – while more authentic, are just as complicated. And the reality that even when you change your whole life around, you still have to contend, in some form or another – with your family.
We are living through an aftermath. Paradigms are shifting, organizations are changing. Some of us endeavor to get back to normal with a 1950’s-level intensity. But I think humankind has gotten more self-reflective in the last 70 years. Most people I interact with are re-imagining some aspect of their lives, even if they’re still hovering at impasse.
I’m interested in life after life. So, you make this big, bold scary jump. Or maybe you were pushed. What happens on the other side of that?
Where do we go from here?
My best advice? Remember that change is a process. The feelings you're experiencing will eventually pass. A bunch of the cells in your body will die and new cells will replace them.
The evolutionary theory of punctuated equilibrium posits that a species can spend centuries evolving very slowly. And then something happens in the environment, and within a few generations, poof! We've got lungs! As a coach and therapist, I've noticed that growth happens very slowly, and then very fast.
If you’ve ever felt stuck in the impasse layer, you might feel better watching this.
My email is back, but I’m changing the format so you can actually agree to receive it. If you’d like to hear from me, sign up here, where you can also view some of my old emails. I won’t write every week anymore, but I’ll send something, sometimes. About Station Eleven or musicals or Martin Buber or what I’m learning from accidentally moving to a retirement community.
Tell me how you are doing. What does the aftermath look like for you?
And thank you,
Maryanne