robert frost wrote, "the best way out is through."

since i was fifteen, i've scribbled that quote on notebooks but never really understood it. to me in meant, trudging through things to get through them. i think i even had it next to my yearbook photograph my senior year. (how teenage-angtsy of me.) i think this is part of getting older. knowing that you have to go through something deeply, painfully, like squeezing a washcloth until all of the water is out, until you are able to heal. losing - whether it's a death, a breakup, a fire - is a the most fragile feeling in the world. the past few months i've felt like i have two clenched fists (or fifty) and i'm just now able to uncurl my fingers.

i was reading an article that talked about "hooking." how we are always looking for something new to hook us and spin us in another direction, away from where we are now. i have definitely done that in the past, knowing that the only thing that could quiet my mind was to be somewhere equally loud. i don't feel that anymore. i don't feel that desperate feeling to find something else. things begin from the inside out, rather than the other way around.

"life is cyclical- we pass through different moods, we live through seasons, we have times of rich harvests and times of bleak winter. life uses cycles to create newness. we move from the old to the new only as we pass through the cycle of chaos. we need to let go of the old (which always feels terrible,) before new life and capacity can arise. instead of fleeing from the fearful place of chaos, or trying to rescue people from it. leaders need to help people stay with the chaos, help them walk through it together, and look for the new insights and capacities that can emerge."

margaret j. wheatley