Like so many clichés, “Oh, no, not another ‘growth’ opportunity!” is obnoxious, in large part because it’s true.
Opportunity, or a set of circumstances that make it possible to do something (Oxford Online Dictionary), does not guarantee a positive outcome, and is most definitely a gift with strings attached.
I would go so far as to say the greatest opportunities are likely to be hidden under paralyzing layers of fear, dread, and pain.
Opportunity demands responsibility. No wonder we so often avoid it! It takes a determined effort to excavate opportunity, an effort requiring time, honesty, and dealing with our emotions, defenses, habits and denial.
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison
Hence, the cliché. Growth is frequently uncomfortable and expensive.
I suspect every one of us has a secret list in our heads of events and possibilities we simply cannot face. Usually, we feel that way because we’ve already lived through them and they were so traumatic we’re determined to never go there again. In essence, we’re afraid of ghosts. We think we’ll die if we have to face another loss, another attack, another rejection or another battle, forgetting we’ve obviously survived the first time(s), and thus are older and wiser.
What to do when we fear we’ll have to revisit some traumatic setting or situation? Freeze? Fight? Flee?
Probably all of those, in one form or another. Yet there is another choice. It’s not an easy choice, but it’s an option.
Reframe. Reframe. Reframe.
Setting aside for a moment our history, our memories, our stories and scripts about what did happen and what will surely happen again, setting aside our fear, rage and pain, wiping the blood out of our eyes, taking a deep breath and searching for opportunity is the work of heroes. Such a choice feeds our power, rather than diminishing it.
If we can catch even a glimpse, a whisper, a rumor of opportunity, the next step is to identify what we might do with the circumstances we dread most. What is that dread about? What has not healed?
What, in fact, do we need, and how do we turn the circumstances we most fear and wish to avoid into an opportunity for hope, healing, closure, forgiveness, letting go, or whatever it is we need to do?
Now, there’s a mighty question.
Some things in life are inevitable. We can kick and scream, deny and avoid, distract and pretend, but we know some things are inevitable. I’d rather figure out how to think about inevitabilities before they occur. I can’t think when I’m shaking with dread. Dread is a dead end. It fills my mind with a dull roar, it overwhelms my senses, and it hangs out with despair, depression, powerlessness, futility and a lot of other bad actors I don’t want to have anything to do with.
Dread makes me want to run like a panicked rabbit. Opportunity embraces me like a mother.
It is possible to insist our emotions, like fear and dread, sit quietly on a bench (with beer, bubble gum and baseball cards to keep them occupied) while we interview Opportunity. It takes some practice and self-discipline, but we can succeed in feeling our feelings and setting overwhelming emotion to the side unless we’re being actively hurt in real time.
Here are some interview questions for Opportunity:
- Where is my power?
- What do I need to do to take care of myself?
- How can I engage with opportunity flexibly?
- What gives me courage?
- What must I overcome in order to take advantage of opportunity?
- What mystery lies at the heart of a dreaded situation?
- How would things change if I engaged with opportunity?
- What are my goals and intentions?
- What role will I play?
- What boundaries do I need to maintain?
- How do I define success in the context of the situation?
- Who might serve as support, guide, mentor and friend?
- What is there for me to learn?
- What tools, skills and insights will help me?
“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity. From discord find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Albert Einstein
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