The Freedom to Fly
04/11/19 Filed in: Personal Growth
Have you ever looked up into a clear sky and marveled at a bird in flight? Have you ever felt a pang of jealousy as you witnessed a hawk gliding on shifting wind currents, with seemingly effortless ease? Earth bound creatures, we can't literally lift off, but there are those miraculous times when a sudden thought, an inspired vision, can change our trajectory and launch us on a path that transforms our life forever.
In my previous blog post I wrote about how one such vision propelled me to go live in France for nearly a year, a country where I knew no one. In this post I want to briefly write about what preceded that vision, and to share how an inner shift, a deep release, can often lead to profound, fulfilling external changes.
My father, a physician, was a German Jew who escaped Nazi Germany. He arrived at Ellis Island in 1938, at the age of 39 and began a new life here. Although two of his siblings were also able to leave, they weren't able to obtain visas for their parents. In 1942 Sophie and Gustav Lechner were deported to Poland and were then picked up, never to be heard from again.
During my childhood, my father rarely spoke about the war, nor did he speak much about his parents until later in life. But the weight of his guilt and loss permeated our household, and hung heavily over everything, like a dark, invisible shadow. As a child, I took on that legacy of guilt, loss and shame, as well as the pain of never having known my grandparents. As children, we all accumulate burdens we later wish to free ourselves of, and this was one of mine.
In my late forties, I had the good fortune of attending a workshop called The Progoff Intensive Journal Program, where I was introduced to the remarkable concept that one could dialog with anything; any person, any place, any event, any emotion. It turned out to be so life changing, that I'll provide a link at the end, because the workshops are still given today and I highly recommend them.
I had gone with a friend and we spent a weekend in a monastic setting, dialoging on paper with the provocative, problematic issues in our lives. One of the events I chose to dialog with was the Holocaust and with my connection, through blood, to this apocalyptic event.
I can no longer remember exactly what occurred during that process, but something within me profoundly shifted. When I stepped outside at the end of that day and stood in the spring sunshine, I found the familial burden I'd carried for so long had been lifted. The world I now saw looked shining, alive and full of possibility. I was half European after all, and at that moment I had an epiphany. I would rent my house out, find a place to house sit and go live for a year in France.
A long awaited inner liberation had taken place and as a result, before me lay a grand and unforgettable adventure. I had released a burden I'd been carrying, and now I finally had the freedom to fly !
To access information about the Progoff Intensive Journal workshops.