Awaken... Reflect... Engage...

How? By joining the conversation centered on Rites of Passage as Gateways for Awakening—hosted by Katie Pettine & Liz Karcewski, your Guides for this Steppingstone.

Katie Pettine

Stepping Stone 08 Guide

"My name is Katie, and I’m a writer. My sanctuary is in the mountains. I prefer dogs over most people and eat dessert with every meal. I feel lost if I’m not carrying a book with me everywhere, and I have anxiety around driving, even though I love to explore new places.”

My wedding is in one month, and I should feel excited, but all I can think about is that I’m still just a kid. Even though I have hit those arbitrary rites of passage that are supposed to mark my transition into adulthood—e.g., driver’s license, voter registration, graduation ceremonies—I still feel like a little girl playing dress up in my wedding dress. No amount of credit cards, bills, or lease agreements have made me feel like an adult, and not even the worry line developing on my forehead or the laugh lines around my eyes make me feel my age. I wonder if this is because I have not been challenged by genuine rites-of-passage ordeals with the power to awaken me to my life’s true meaning and purpose. Instead, all that’s happened is that I have been conditioned to follow my culture’s rigid life script as follows: Get an education, get a job, get married, work a job, buy a house, have kids, grow old… die…

One thing I do know is that I do not want to be a submissive follower. So, I ask myself: What would being an adult look like if I put aside what others expect me to do and be? As a host of this steppingstone, I have grappled with this question in three stages.

"I realize that the power to become the author of my own destiny has been inside me all along."

Stage 1 – Imagining Being Grown Up:

I close my eyes and imagine being grown up. I see a house with a bright yellow door and lots of trees. The four walls and roof represent safety, comfort, and stability. I imagine the sturdy bricks absorbing my worries. Inside is where I can welcome friends or make dinner for my parents to pay them back for all the meals they’ve provided me in my lifetime.

But the act of actually leaving my home is where my imagination crumbles. Buying a house means leaving the home I grew up in. It means leaving my parents. I’ve grown attached to them, especially during these last few years, which have involved my mother’s battle with cancer and a traumatizing pandemic. Anxious thoughts overwhelm me: Will my parents be sad without me if I leave permanently? Will they miss me so much that it causes them to sink into a deep depression? Will their relationship fall apart without me? Will they need my help in this tech-heavy world?

I know that leaving home is my next rite-of-passage. It’s the step on my Hero’s Journey that will lead me to the next chapter of my life with a husband. Leaving home shouldn’t be so hard, as I’ve moved countless times, but the option to return home has always made leaving home seem less intimidating, like a short-term interlude. Buying a house, though, is not exactly temporary. It would mean me without my parents—me and not us. How can I set out on my own when I know I’ll face unknown challenges and inevitable failures?  Who or what will be my guide? How do I even begin?

Interlude: But what if I could change my belief that I’ll be destined to fail if I leave home? Thinking like this only limits me and holds me back from taking my next step. But I will have to take a step eventually—I can’t stand still forever.

Stage 2 – Creating my own Rite of Passage:

I step into the small patch of woods behind my parents’ house. It’s dark, but the moon gives me just enough light to see. My parents would have told me to bring a flashlight and a jacket, but I am managing just fine as my own protector.

I pull out a note from my pocket. It says, “Mom and Dad are helpless without you, and you are helpless without them.”

My attempts to build a fire are unsuccessful. I should go inside to ask my dad for help. But no! I’m not helpless. I use the lighter in my pocket and set the edge of the paper ablaze; and then I bear witness as the paper curls and darkens into fragments of ash. Finally, I disperse the ash wisps in the front yard of the house, announcing that the time has come for me to leave home and for my parents to be strong in my absence.

But I’ll need to be strong as well. So, I pull a stone from my pocket that reminds me of my mom and that I found in her garden. Then, I hold the stone to my forehead and say out loud, “May the power of my mind bring me strength and clarity.” Next, placing the stone over my heart, I recite: “May the tenderness of my heart free me from what no longer serves my life.” And, finally, with the stone between my feet, I say: “May the wisdom of my feet lead me, today and always, toward what is healing and life-sustaining.

I carry that stone, today; and I will continue to carry it with me until the stones stacked to build my future house fill me with strength and determination... until I can leave a stone in my own garden and paint it bright colors to match the sun and sky and wildflowers, because my own trust and strength will have brought me to that house. I can see it now, and I already feel less afraid.

Stage 3 – Continuing my Journey of Awakening:

When I reenter my parents’ house, after spreading the ashes out front, the hold that this house has had on me feels less crushing. Now, it’s just a house, no longer mine. I realize the power to become the author of my own destiny has been inside me all along. I am not helpless; nor am I destined to fail. I’ve held onto these limiting belief for too long, and the freedom I feel from finally letting go of them fills me with anticipation for the challenges that lie ahead.

******

Liz Karcewski

Stepping Stone 08 Guide

“My name is Liz. I am 25 years old and I live in Philadelphia. I am an artist and I feel most alive when I am drawing or painting!”

I was a sophomore in college, when I was first introduced to the concept of The Hero’s Journey. At the time, it seemed a bit far-fetched—more like fiction than fact. Fast-forward: Now, here I am, at age 25, on this website, looking at the diagram (below) that depicts the various stages of The Hero’s Journey and I feel affirmed because I see parts of my own life journey reflected in this diagram.

Upon graduation from college, I moved to New York where I landed a 9-5 job in sales, but I soon discovered that this job was soul-crushing because I was constantly compelled to compete with my peers while striving to meet daily sales quotas. Meanwhile, the company would try to convince us that the work we were doing was for the common good, but it seemed to me that it was mostly about generating profits for the company.

When people congratulated me on landing my first adult job, it felt good in the moment, but inside I mostly felt sad and lost. Although I tried my best to care and to work my hardest, I just couldn’t get rid of the feeling that it all felt so wrong to me. Back when I started college I was immersed in the status quo, playing it safe, conforming to the success script of my culture. At that time, it never occurred to me to give thought to my life’s meaning and purpose. I was asleep.

"It was in that moment that I was truly thrust into the unknown, left by myself with nowhere to go, no one to work for."

After one year at that job I quit. In search of a new job, I wanted to find something meaningful, but the best I could do was land another corporate job in sales. Confession: I was honestly scared to take the time to wait for something better in case that did not materialize.

Unfortunately, although I really hoped and tried, the same feelings of anxiety and sadness came with my new job. With the aspiration of finally making a change, I applied to a graduate school program in Counseling, believing that this might allow me to finally leave the corporate world and find a fulfilling career. But then the global pandemic happened, and the world turned upside down. I lost that second job to the pandemic; and I was denied admission to the graduate program.

It was in that moment that I was truly thrust into the unknown, left by myself with nowhere to go, no one to work for. In the silence and stillness of my emptiness, I was slowly cracked open from the inside out. In the process, I re-awakened to what has made my heart sing ever since I was a child—ART!  So it was that I liberated myself from the status-quo job script that I had been taught to follow, and gained access to the freedom to discover my true calling in life.

Art has always come naturally to me and when I make art, I often enter a flow state and feel free to be fully myself. However, I never considered art as something I could devote my time to because it was never listed as an economically viable option by the adults in my life.

But the moment I picked up a paintbrush and started to create art, I felt alive, and with this came a deep sense that art is what I was always meant to do! It just took time for me to gain the confidence to shed the layers of my conditioning so that I might come home to myself—home to what makes my heart sing.

An Invitation to Join the Conversation

As your Guides for this steppingstone, our hope is that this Community Space will become an energized setting where we can learn from each other by sharing stories, questions, feelings and reflections relating to the Rites of Passage theme of this steppingstone. As a way to join the conversation, please consider posting responses to any of the prompts (below) that call to you.

i-What is the hardest thing you have ever had to do? What did you learn in the process?

ii-Where, in your life, are you conforming to soul-crushing cultural scripts? In other words, where have you been playing it safe by shying away from the possibility of fully awakening to the gift that is your one-and-only precious life?

iii-What’s one thing you could do to allow yourself to be cracked open and forged by the fires of life?

iv-Finally, how might you make sense of  Joseph Campbell’s words: “We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

Use the comment box below to share your reflections!

When posting, focus on what you know to be true for you