From Falling Back to Springing Forward
[In image: “Tick Tock Theater” with photo from the “Particular” montage. Rachel Phillips’ Ghost Light Theaters.]
When I was in the midst of my dissertation research, attempting to articulate a theory of fallback, it was autumn in the United States. At the time, developmental researcher, author, practitioner extraordinaire, and one of my research key thinkers, Jennifer Garvey Berger, lived in New Zealand where they were just emerging from winter. There was a period of that research season, as we wrangled our calendars trying to find a date and time for our next interview, that Jennifer and I were actively in the discussion of the precise days that I would fall back and she would spring forward. And for those of you who may doubt that these occurrences of falling back and springing forward are predictable but who may also have your interest piqued in how they could be possible, let me clarify…
Getting in my own way
I get in my own way. A lot. I’ve been watching me doing this for a while. Noticing. Observing. Reflecting.
Most often it’s my Righteous One that cuts me off at the pass. She’s the one who insists on holding her ground around her values, who has a hard time seeing any other perspective than her own. She fears that if she bends, she might break.
No, actually, that’s not it. She fears that if she bends, people will think she’s inauthentic. Authenticity is a big thing for her. Apparently. For me, that is.
Unexamined, Righteous One becomes Dead Right. As in dead in the water. Because I’m so busy tending to my authenticity that I lose sight of the bigger picture, the long game, the other things that are important to me.
The descending and ascending path of development
When we think (and talk) about development, we often think (and talk) about growth. But, over the past decade through my research and practice, I’ve come to realize that development is about not only the ascending, but also the descending path. Development occurs as we traverse, over and over again, the territory of our knowing, sometimes moving forward, sometimes falling back, sometimes just sitting in the being space, learning what new lessons it has to teach us.
From Fallback to Spring Forward: Bringing our better selves in times of complexity
Do you remember in those old 80’s horror, adventure, sci-fi flicks when the walls start closing in around the protagonist? Think Indiana Jones…or Star Wars. Doorways close, a boulder rolls in to block the entrance to the cave, windows disappear behind the shifting walls. All the while, the protagonist is desperate for a way to escape the impending doom and is forced to become smaller and smaller in an effort to avoid being crushed by the shrinking space he is in. Well, this doesn’t just happen in movies. This shrinking is also what happens in our psychological self when we experience fallback.