When there's no roadmap

Four lessons from life changing events

Every day we experience events that create learning opportunities.

Sometimes it’s the season of your life or work: a new fiscal year, the end of summer and school starting, a milestone birthday.

Sometimes it’s an event that rocks your world: a health diagnosis, the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, losing your job. When any of these markers take place, you quickly realize how something can totally transform your way of life. In an instant.

These life changing events indelibly mark themselves in your whole person. You know precisely where you were and what you were doing when you learned the news that would shape your immediate and/or longterm future. T

he unexpected has a tendency to pull the rug out from under your feet. You’re left reeling as you wonder what’s next?

It’s that sense of wonder that offers you a lifeline.

In that place of not knowing, you can choose to lean into what you do know. That’s when you discover that you know what to do, one step at a time. Even when you have no roadmap.

THIS WEEK’S INSIGHT

When there’s no roadmap

Our neighbor, Daren, was on a ski vacation with his wife and two sons earlier this year when he got a call from his doctor.

You have invasic ductile carcinoma. Stage 3. Breast cancer.

Daren said he got off the call feeling that everything was surreal.

There are a few times in your life when you have this kind of a moment. The birth of my sons come to mind. Life changing in a dramatic way. When I heard the news, the doctor’s voice was acoustically different. Every sense was tingling.

Everything about his diagnosis shook his world and the world of his family.

You go through all the emotions. Can it be solved easily? Will it take a long time? There’s no roadmap.

Daren and his wife, Courtney, then worked through a chemo plan with his doctors.

But I did wonder, am I taking the right step? It’s like walking a tightrope. And of course well meaning folks around me would offer me their experiences or how to handle the treatment in a different manner. We decided this is how we’d go through it, building the map as we went.

Every other Friday he had to undergo chemotherapy. In between, he monitored and paced himself so he could show up for his wife, his sons’ sporting events, his family and even to our weekly Happy Hour.

I look at what I’m going through as a mind change. Cancer attempts to limit you, it changes your life and how you’re being defined. Now every walk with my dog, playing with my sons, hanging out with my wife resonates more deeply - because I’ve changed my mind.

When I asked him what stood out the most in the journey thus far, he paused.

For me, it’s the re-set button. I was playing golf with a friend and I told him that I feel I’ve had two christenings in life. One as a result of the way I was raised by my Christian family, and one that just hit me on the head. I feel like I’ve been born again. Not through a religious experience, but I look differently at what’s transpired and what’s next.

Daren’s chemo is complete, he goes in for surgery at the end of this month.

THIS WEEK’S TOOL

Four lessons from life changing events

Using Daren’s experience and in conversations with clients, friends and family who’ve gone through life changing events, here are four lessons I heard over and over from these resilient individuals who talk about living through the ordeal and beyond.

Take time to process. ?

You will most likely experience shock, feel like you’re in a dream, wonder if you’ll ever get better.

Gather support.

You know who these folks are. They are the ones who aren’t afraid to listen, to be by your side, who stay connected.

Create your own roadmap.

Even with the help of your doctor, boss or family – when you’re hit with a life changing event there is no roadmap. You get to decide what to do next.

It’s a mind change.

Rather than looking at loss as a life limitation, consider how a mind change allows you to expand your thinking. To look at life more simply. To find joy.

My takeaway

The lessons I’m walking away with this week come at a heavy price.

They are the result of searching deep within yourself, recognizing an enormous hurdle that you face has no roadmap and taking that step even when you don’t know if it’s the right one.

I’m in awe when I’m in the presence of someone who chooses to look head on at a life changing event. You can almost feel the space around them expand when they refuse to let the situation limit them.

People tell me I’m so positive as I face my battle with cancer. I don’t know how you can see it any other way. I have a map without an end point. It’s a journey. It’s life.

Daren Hutchison