How long does transformation take? Longer than you want it to. In today’s fast-paced instantaneous culture we tend to lean into the mindset that I want what I want, and I want it now. Amazon, for one, has capitalized on this viewpoint with its same day delivery and incentives if you’re willing to wait for your package. Saving a document on your computer used to take a few seconds (depending on how far you go back – maybe more than a few seconds for a floppy disk!). Now, your documents auto-save and you don’t even have to remember to back-up and save your work! Transformation, though, especially if it’s significant change, takes significant time.
It takes time to create a new map. Depending on the species, caterpillars spend anywhere from five days to weeks or months in a cocoon before becoming a butterfly. Considering that the insects live as caterpillars an average of three weeks and butterflies only one or two weeks, five days can be a fifth of their lifespan! Suddenly, five days becomes much more significant. What if one-fifth of your life was spent in significant transformation?
Another example of why time is needed for transformation comes from military history. Through World War II, soldiers shipped out with their units and returned with their units. They literally went on ships across the ocean and the voyages took weeks. The units had time built in to become more cohesive on the way over as well as time together on the return trip to debrief and commiserate with colleagues who had been through the same experiences. With the advent of airplanes, this time with one’s unit before and after the battle decreased significantly because it was no longer necessary to spend weeks at sea to get to your destination. In fact, psychologists point to this change as one of the reasons why Vietnam veterans felt so much more isolated when they returned to civilian life. Not only had they fought in a controversial war, often not by their own choice but because they were drafted, but they didn’t have the built-in time with their units and fellow soldiers to debrief and process afterward. The shift from Asia back to their home happened so quickly that many felt disoriented.
Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay has compared Veterans returning home with the return of Odysseus after the Trojan War in his book, “Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming.” He theorized that perhaps Odysseus and his crew took ten years to return home from the war because they needed that much time for transition and transformation. His interpretation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” is that the voyage needed to take ten years so that they could begin to adjust to their post-war lives before returning home. They needed the time to create their new maps. They had been changed by the war; home had also changed in their absence. To be abruptly thrown back into their old lives, which actually no longer existed, would be disorienting at best and traumatizing at worst. It still was to some extent, as the men learned all the ways that their homes and families had changed while they were gone, but they’d at least had some time to adjust and orient themselves before adding the new setting. They had begun to create their new maps before having to use the new maps.
Transformation takes time. It might even take one-fifth of your life! This amount of time doesn’t sound so bad once you consider all the changes you have already experienced. The difference with humans is that we tend to go through multiple transformations in our lifetime and not just one major one like a caterpillar/butterfly. When you’re faced with one, however, it generally means that you need a new map because the old one isn’t going to work anymore and will only create problems if you try to force it. Drawing a new map takes time. It’s not going to instantly appear in your hands like Harry Potter’s Marauder’s Map once you say the magic words, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”
Fortunately, you may be able to find guidance from others who have had to create new maps. You may even be able to have some companions who can help point out signposts and landmarks to look for on your new map. The guidance may shorten some of the time it takes, or it may help make your new map more detailed and the process still takes the time it takes. Don’t rush it. As Miracle Max says in the movie The Princess Bride, “You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.” If you try to speed up mapmaking, you get rotten maps of how to reorient your life. Transformation takes time. If you’re willing, please share in the comments the people and resources who have helped guide you as you reorient yourself to your new reality.