Work in Progress
By Emily Phifer, M.S. MFT
When I was younger, I held tightly to a beloved illusion that at some point in my life, I would reach a “settled place”. There I would reside, with a steady job and life situation, all loose ends tied up, issues resolved, and a comfortable homeostasis surrounding me like a warm blanket. Of course, more years of life quickly cleared up that illusion, replacing it with the hardwon reality that life is anything but settled or static.
People I love have died before their time, I’ve survived the end of a marriage, started over and moved more times than I can count. I’ve held different jobs, lived different places, seen friendships and relationships morph and change in ways I couldn’t have imagined- some good, some painful. Becoming a parent has also required a complete overhaul of my life and self as I knew it- one that no parenting book on the shelf could quite have prepared me for!
And then, the pandemic. For all of us- a disruption of seismic magnitude not one of us was fully prepared to face. A season of disequilibrium, reordering, shifting priorities, and survival mode. Losses and changes and uncertainties requiring us to shift how we’ve done our lives, and to look back wistfully at simpler times. It has been messy for us all. And we find ourselves in the middle of the mess, wondering what exactly the future holds.
And yet, if we look closely, we can see that our shifting, imperfect, broken, changing lives- with all of their twists and turns- can still be unmistakably beautiful. Consider the cycle of life and death in nature. New life is born, creatures show their true colors, grow, adapt, struggle to survive, and eventually cease and become absorbed within the greater cycle of life, death and rebirth. But nothing is lost. There is always the potential for growth and regrowth, even out of the ashes of the most devastating wildfires.
Our lives are constantly in motion- which is what actually allows us to grow and change- along with those shifts and adaptations. With agriculture, the ground must be tilled and cultivated to make way for new growth. And so it is with us, that what seems like disruption and chaos in our lives eventually can become the fertile ground for our own growth, development, and even transformation. We are works in progress and we can take comfort in knowing that this is the way of things- messy and imperfect as our lives might be.
- As you hold the pieces of your messy and beautiful life in this moment, how might you think differently about the unsettled places in your life?
- While difficult to tolerate and navigate, might these messes be places of transformation and possibility for you to grow? To learn something new?
- How does thinking of your life as a “Work in Progress” give you permission to grow and learn as you go? How does being a “Work in Progress” help you to make peace with being imperfect?
Please contact Sync Counseling Center should you need extra support navigating life these days.