When Nothing is Actually Something
Reflections on the early phases of life and career transitions
I’m in the midst of a David Whyte phase, slowly and steadily making my way through his books and poetry collections. His work has impacted me in the way that all great writers seem to - putting feelings, sensations, and experiences into words that I otherwise haven’t been able to quantify or explain on my own.
Listening to his audiobook What to Remember When Waking this week helped me to make sense of the last few years of my life — of inhabiting a space where it felt like both everything and nothing was happening at the same time. In Session 1, Whyte asserts that a central discipline required for human life is having a good relationship with the unknown, particularly in those times of great change when we are leaving a life and identity behind and becoming something new. But what exactly does it mean to have a good relationship with the unknown during those seasons of life? Whyte contends that to embrace the unknown at this early stage is to intentionally create space around our life and work. In his view, creating that spaciousness is contingent upon not “trying to convert the unknown into names” because anything we might try to define or quantify at this early stage “…would be far too small for what was about to occur.” In other words, to embrace the unknown is to hold back from the tendency to try to define a path or narrative before we’ve taken the time to see what is truly meant to emerge. We can’t force the map to appear - we have to let it become known.
I’ve often felt that I have a good relationship with the unknown in the sense that I have been unafraid to take chances and embrace change in my life. However, that comfortability was severely tested in my most recent season of transition when I took the biggest leap of my life to date and left a very stable investing job (and the kind of job that the outside world easily “gets”) to start a coaching business. I was comfortable enough with the unknown to take the chance, but I was not comfortable enough to avoid “trying to name things” too early in the transition.
As soon as I made the jump, I worked furiously to create a sense of certainty and credibility right away. I would be comfortable with the unknown to the extent that I immediately had a full list of clients, was making close to my old salary, and could confidently tell the people in my life that it was all going as planned. I am here to tell you that did not happen and also that Whyte is right. What I tried to name was too small for what would ultimately occur. I certainly couldn’t have conjured up the image for No Directions at that time or been brave enough to reach out to the clients that I absolutely love working with now. I definitely would not have imagined living in a Florida beach town and (gasp!) actually enjoy playing golf in my free time.
Circumstance forced me to create the kind of spaciousness that Whyte maintains is required. What I have found to be so difficult in these beginning stages, the silence and the reality of less doing and more letting go, turned out to be exactly what I needed. But it was painful - I was so used to doing things and being rewarded with the dopamine hits of achievement and steady process that I felt unmoored without them. Whyte summarizes this stage well saying, “There’s a lot of time where nothing seems to happen but a great deal is actually happening if you are able to discern it - it’s a disengagement, turning sideways into the light, and reaching down into the core of things for the seed that will unfold itself into the great tree of your future life.”
As Whyte’s words suggest, there was quite a lot happening amidst what felt like nothing. There was so much that had to be let go of before I could create the great tree that is my life now. There was a letting go of my clinging to the identity of investor and of a way of working that was completely unsustainable. There was a slow and hard fought battle to ease my grip on control, to let go of attachment to outcomes and start focusing on effort and process. There was a letting go of a life in New York and an embrace of the pull to a calmer life in Florida. There was a letting go of the idea that writing didn’t have a place in my life and realizing that it very much did. Only then did the path begin to appear.
It’s a process I now regularly hold the space for with my coaching clients. Before we can grow the business, write the book, get the next job, or build an empire there is a foundation we have to build first. We have to create that spaciousness with a letting go and a disengagement of what has been before we can create the something new that my clients are seeking. If you want to grow a team and successfully learn to delegate, we’re almost certainly going to have to change your relationship with control. If you want to improve your decision making ability, there is likely no framework that will be effective over the long term without also learning how to manage stress, embracing moments when it’s better to slow down, and creating healthy habits that allow your nervous system to calm down. If I’ve learned anything as a coach, it’s that the work that ends up transforming and mattering the most to my clients is some of the hardest to quantify. It was all the happenings underneath the surface that once felt like nothing.
Whyte reminds us that there is a gift in this not knowing and not being able to name things in the early stages of great change. He argues that if we knew exactly what we were getting involved with during these moments, we would be more likely to run a thousand miles in the opposite direction than keep going. I know this to be true, not only because of my own experience, but because of how often that exact sentiment is echoed in No Directions interviews. As Iration lead vocalist, Micah Pueschel, said in a recent interview about his path to making it as a professional musician, “If I would have known how long and how difficult the road was going to be, I don’t know if I would have been as gung ho about it.” The unknown is often the vessel for all our fears, but maybe the reframe worth considering is that it’s actually our salvation. I invite you to make the space for it.