In New Territory

This weekend, there was an impromptu gathering of graduating seniors at our house. As I watched a backyard full of kids laughing, playing games, and sitting around a fire, I kept thinking about what was emotionally going on inside each one of them. Seventeen of my daughter’s classmates have been in school together since they were five years old. I’ve watched them grow up a little more each year and now they are all going separate ways, around the nation, for college. Her school is a unique one where there is one campus with elementary, middle, and high school all connected. Because of this, seventeen of them have never known school without each other. They have walked the halls of the same building for thirteen years together. They have had lunch in the same dining room for thirteen years together. And now, they are moving into new territory. 

Anytime we move into new territory, our brain will sound an alarm. It is like the control center of your existence saying with urgent caution, “this is new, we’ve never done this before, we don’t know what to expect, we aren’t sure how to keep you safe in this scenario because we’ve never had this happen before.” 

Every human being has a brain that is hard-wired to keep them safe. The job of our amygdala is to sound alarms when there is a threat to our safety. We are designed to be weary of danger so that we proceed with caution and stay alive. The continuation of the species relies on the design of our brain’s ability to detect a threat. 

That is why transitions in life are so challenging. We aren’t wired for change. We are actually wired to avoid it. However, everything in nature is also pre-programmed to grow and thrive. The acorn knows to become an oak tree. A peony expands from a tight ball into layers of petals. Within all of us, there is life-force within us, that says “grow and expand.” 

This dilemma is part of the human experience: we desire growth and we fear the changes it requires. 

So next time, you find yourself unsure of the future, it doesn’t necessarily mean that danger lies ahead for you, it means your brain just has never before done this new thing. So hold yourself gently in those moments and whisper to yourself, “you are in new territory, but we can figure it out, I’m with you.” Don’t abandon yourself, instead connect more deeply with your own soul and go into this new chapter together. 

Here are a couple of examples of new territory I’ve discussed with clients recently:

• I was talking last week to a client who is in a new relationship with someone he really likes. He is new to dating and hasn’t had a relationship that has ever lasted this long before, nor has he ever felt this level of in-love before. His inner critic is telling him that any minute this relationship will implode because she is going to decided she doesn’t like him anymore. There is no evidence at all to support that theory. He is just in new territory and his brain is sounding the alarms. As he talked through it with me, he realized the joy and fun he is having in this relationship is worth the periodic fears he has that it will end. He wants to keep this relationship going with her, so he decided to learn some tools to manage his fears while he is in this new territory, because the expansion and growth he’s feeling in his life are worth it. It’s just new territory, no reason to panic.

• I talked with a woman this week who is considering selling her home and moving into assisted living. This is such a complex transition in our human journeys. The fact is as she ages, she wants a smaller footprint to maintain, yet the story she is telling herself is that a move like this indicates that her life is in the wrap-up stage of her time on earth. She realized that she is subconsciously saddening herself with this kind of storytelling in her brain. It helped her to write out a statement to say to herself when she gets afraid: “this is my brain trying to keep me safe because I’m in new territory here, it doesn’t mean life is over, maybe I’ll have more fun than I’ve ever had before, maybe I’ll meet someone who brings me a new level of joy, maybe this is exactly what I should be doing.”

It is up to each of us to remind our brains that exploring new territory and growth is worth experiencing some thoughts of fear that will pass through our brains. 

New territory will always wave a caution flag in our brains, but it also brings to us the most exciting parts of being human.

To the graduates, and to all of us: hold your own hand as you walk into new territory this week, good things are ahead for you. 

Onward,

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