Thoughts on rebuilding a life

A friend of mine recently wrote to me asking, “How does one go about starting a new life?” She explained that everything in her present situation was unacceptable and she desperately needed changes. She needed really big life changes.

Her reason for writing to me was because, knowing my past history, she considered me to be a bit of an expert on the subject. I’ve gone about and reinvented my own life twice in the last five years – the first time through choice, the second from trauma. Both events were life changing and challenging, the second much more than the first.

Having given my friend’s question a good deal of thought – for this is not a question to be taken lightly – I wrote to her providing the only answer I could, “It takes something extraordinary”. 

The extraordinary may be something you march into willingly. Or it might be something which you don’t necessarily want to do but find that you must. It takes a lot of bravery and it’s a lot of work. Both times in reinventing my life, I likened it to jumping off a precipice into the abyss of the unknown.

But what do I mean when I talk about starting again from scratch? Of course, we are all made up of our past experiences and we all work from the personal and biological attributes that make us us. These things define who we are and provide us with a foundation to build anew or to change that which needs changing.

So when I write about rebuilding a life, I refer to not only the dismantling of material possessions, where you live or with whom, but also elements that change who we are. This requires a lot of thinking, a lot of self reflection, and much sacrifice. It is not for the faint of heart.

Reinventing one’s life might affect – across the board – where you live, your marriage, your money, your career, your friendships, your lover, your family. You might lose it all. It may, and probably will, involve a shift of values, a different way of thinking, your attitude toward others, your entire future, and working toward who you are now going to become and how and where you are going to do that. Are you really ready to do that hard work? It is a choice.

J.K. Rowling gave a commencement speech at Harvard in 2008 entitled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination”. It is one of the most inspiring and referenced commencement speeches given. Her quotes on hope, success, and failure have helped me survive the last five years.

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all — in which case, you fail by default.”

And my favorite:

“I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”

She goes on to say, “Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.”

Rowling’s words are wonderful and inspiring, but I need to point out the one thing missing here, which she does allude to, is that when all is said and done, in order to rebuild a life, we need to acknowledge our purpose.

As I settle in for my writer’s retreat this week, I leave you with this thought. Despite how frightening it may be, you will absolutely know when your situation has become dire enough that you must start again. Mastin Kipp, in his book Claim Your Power, calls these events “divine storms”. And believe me, divine storms will present themselves … you just need to know what they are and when to act on them.

I guess, the thing about jumping off the precipice is the understanding that it is going to suck. But you jump anyway knowing that the fear of jumping is only temporary and that once you land your life will be so much the better. You learn, in fact, that you can fly.

Writer/photographer Lisa Mikulski based in Boston, MA. Available for print or online publications. Editorial, features, content development, and creative.