We Can Do Hard Things

and we should if we wish to grow

Today is the first day of school for my kiddos, and it’s a big one.  My son is entering high school; my daughter, fifth grade. They’ve been both dreading and excited for this day for the past week plus.

For both of my kids, what is expected of them is going to change drastically.

We’ve given my son some leeway in determining his own bedtime, hoping to empower him to make good choices in his own best interest. We’re considering letting him take public transit to school...a venture into independence that last night at dinner he called “scary.” The curriculum and offerings at this level are new, and now that he’s in high school, how he performs really counts as he considers his goals for the future and what it is going to take to achieve them. After comparing class schedules with his friends, he determined yesterday that there is no overlap…he will be “alone” in six classrooms filled with strangers. I told him it will be a great opportunity for him to practice being welcoming and friendly…starting with smiling, a visage that is seldom seen in the wilds of surly teendom. (The look on his face in response missed the mark of my suggestion by a mile.)

My daughter is at a school without her brother for the first time in 5 years (which is not necessarily a bad thing for either party). Fifth grade is the year that the teachers begin in earnest to prepare the students for the changing academic demands and hoped-for self-responsibility-taking of middle school.  She’s long been independent and self-motivated, tending to her own needs (generally) and quite happy to do so.  But she told me yesterday, “I’m going to have to get myself going in the morning.” (as she already does.) “I’m at the age that Daddy’s not going to come wake me up, anymore.” At the same time, the “news” are hard for her — new teacher, new classmates, old classmates that she was not especially looking forward to spending time with anew.

Both my kids went to their respective schools this morning with butterflies in their stomachs and obsessive worst case scenarios playing on repeat in their heads. As they have thousands of times in their young lives, today they faced into things that are unknown, scary, not mastered…things that are hard.

That is just part of life when you are a child—each day presenting seemingly endless new challenges.  And these new challenges that are a smidge out in front of what kids are just beginning to master are what nudges along their developmental unfolding. We adults expect this to be the case and we think very little of asking them to venture into the unfamiliar.

But when was the last time we grown-ups stepped into the unknown, the scary, the spaces that we have not mastered? When was the last time we opted in to do hard things? After all, this is how we, too, continue to grow long after our physical development has ceased.

In the field of adult development, we talk about edges. What is at our developmental edge is that which we are only able to glimpse but not yet take in fully. It often scares the hell out of us and awakens feelings of incompetence. It is something that is just beyond our reach, that exists slightly beyond where we are developmentally.  Often. 

Sometimes, it’s a thing that tugs us back into a less mature way of knowing. We may have our full capacities in play until we encounter that person, or that thing, or walk into that circumstance that we haven’t yet gotten a handle on. This is the thing I study. When we fall back. In this case, we are frightened to do more than steal a glance, we are often uncertain how we might respond differently, and we inevitably fear something but we may not yet know exactly what that thing is.

In both cases, noticing what these edges are for each of us, walking up to them, getting curious about them, and experimenting with coming to know this unfamiliar terrain is a pathway to our conscious growth.  And it is hard. 

We adults are generally out of practice. We do the things we know how to do, that we are good at, that don’t set the insects aflutter inside our bellies and the dreaded scenarios to run loops through our minds.

But we, too, can do hard things.  And, if we want to grow to be more conscious, more mature, more aware, we should.

As a parent, I have made the choice to (attempt to) model the behavior that I ask of my kids. As someone who researches adult development and accompanies others in their growth, I’ve made the choice to grow on purpose.  As a human, I’ve made the choice to push into my edges, both forward and back, so I might discover and live into a fuller and more authentic me that has more choices. And sometimes, it’s hard.

Through my research and practice, I have created an approach to coming into relationship with my edges – leading and trailing alike – that is built around the metaphor of theater.  I accompany folks in identifying the characters that make up their ensemble of self, the backstories that inform these characters’ development, the roles these characters can, do, and might want to take up, and the scenes that are likely to populate the play of their lives.  Hell, my book and business names were inspired by theater lore. 

And, I’m scared as hell to get on stage. (Not the metaphorical one…the literal one.)

So, when I received a message from The Old Globe Theater that they were looking to cast walk-on roles with members of the community in Henry 6, I felt the tingle of excitement (that we rarely get in adulthood), followed by the drag of self-doubt (which is a frequent visitor in [my own] grown-up-ness), and in spite of that, I threw my hat into the ring.  And I was chosen!  And by chosen, I mean I was selected at somewhat random based on my demographics and availability, sight-unseen. In truth it was a crapshoot for the good folks at The Old Globe. But for me, it was a sure thing. Not because I thought it would be easy. But because I knew it would be hard.

I am scared as hell to perform, to step on any stage, for any reason, though I am regularly outward facing in my work. But to take the role of actor...on a renowned theater stage…with individuals who have dedicated their lives to developing and delivering the craft…well that takes the fear to a whole new level.  And I knew I must. 

I needed to do it for my kids, to step to the edges of my comfort and my knowing, as they have been challenged to do most days of their lives, and to have them witness me do it. 

I needed to do it for me…to face an old fear and determine if it had the same stickiness that it did before (it did not), to inquire into what felt most scary to me (being in the spotlight when I was very clear I was not good at something…yet), and to open myself up to experiencing something new (the exhilaration was palpable). 

In order to grow ourselves as we raise our children, we need to do hard things.  And we can. 

We humans have limitless capacity to expand how we see the world and how we see ourselves in it.  We can choose to opt in for the hard things that remind us that we can do hard things, that we are a miraculous piece of machinery that has everything it needs to upgrade its operating system to meet the changing demands and complexity of our worlds and the desires for who and how we wish to be for ourselves and the humans we grow.  It is often hard (and scary, and uncertain, and enlivening, too).  And, we can do hard things.

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