A couple of years ago I was in a personal slump.
I was trying to hold together a changing work environment and desperately battling deep feelings of loss and inadequacy. But beneath this narrative was the greater story of the death of my dreams. Through bouts of resentment and depression I struggled for the answers to why I was so unhappy. I tried with all my might to regain the sense of joy and passion that once fueled my life and mission. The springs that once brought me life through work and my social relationships had dried up or moved out. I had once loved climbing, music, serving in my church and community. The close relationships I held tight were falling away.
Long ago I knew that I wanted to serve the community through my love for climbing. It was a craft that I wanted to use in combination with skills to help develop emerging leaders. But this wasn’t happening; I had lost a zeal for life and a passion to inspire young people. In other words, the light was out of my eyes.
I would like to say that I summoned some deep inner resilience to pick myself up and move on, or that I was able to roll with the punches, but the honest part is that I had come to the edge of the map. I didn’t know how to navigate the numbing waters I was in. I was cold and felt very alone. I looked for comfort in exercise, more work and other diversions, but I knew I was far from alive. For the sake of honesty these diversions were starving my marriage, family, and mission of the fullness of my mental presence. I could be there and be a million miles away and my wife recognized that I had hit the wall before I was willing to admit it.
It was in this fog that someone reached out to me. He recognized my symptoms from similar years of wadding through these deep waters. I was drowning and looking for answers to why I couldn’t hold myself up, and he was offering swimming lessons for deeper water. He brought me to other guides that helped me ask myself the right questions. They helped me connect with my story and the dreams I had let go of. This was so hard, but it is where the adventure began, right at the edge of the map, into the unknown, into the wilderness.