Newfield News Article: The Challenges of Transition

Newfield News Article: The Challenges of Transition

The Challenges of Transition

A Newfield News Article by Aboodi Shabi

We've just been through the 10-day period that marks the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah), a time of reflection over the past year, culminating in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. One of the stories read over Yom Kippur is that of Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of a whale (or "big fish").

As I look back over the last year, I have been reflecting especially on how, in the last 12 months, I have been to two places that, as a young man, I never thought I would visit, two places that have been through unimagined transformation, Berlin and South Africa.

I grew up with the facts of the Cold War and of Apartheid, and although I hoped both would change (and, indeed, did some campaigning against the Apartheid regime), I never expected either reality to change in my lifetime. And, yet, within a couple of years, the Berlin Wall came down and the Apartheid regime began to dissolve starting with the release from prison of Nelson Mandela.

I remember spending Rosh Hashanah in Berlin last year and stepping across the Brandenburg gate, crossing a line that 20 years ago would have been impossible to cross and which many East Berliners died trying to cross. Yet, here I was, freely able to go from East to West as easily as putting one foot in front of the other.

And, then, in August this year, I was in South Africa, teaching in Newfield's first ever South African program. The day before the program started, I went to the Apartheid Museum, a profoundly moving experience. One of the video installations included a performance of The Specials' song, “Free Nelson Mandela,” a song I remember buying nearly 30 years ago and which I used to play when I was a DJ at fund-raising discos for the ANC. Now I was at a museum with a whole building dedicated to Mandela, celebrating his role as the initiator of the new South Africa and architect of the transition from Apartheid to a non-racial society.

One of the other things, however, that struck me about being in South Africa was the security—to get into our hotel, we had to go through two guarded barriers. In all the residential areas we drove through, there were high walls, topped with barbed wire, and people spoke about having panic buttons by their beds, armed response units, etc. One of the things South Africa has to deal with now is a huge rise in crime and how to keep the country secure.

I even heard people saying that, even though they were very glad that Apartheid had come to an end, there were things about the "old days" that were better, and I heard both blacks and whites saying that. Similarly, Germany had to go through a lot of difficulties as it struggled with the question of reunification, despite being jubilant at the collapse of the Berlin Wall. And I've heard Russians talking about how things were better under the old Soviet system than they are today.

In his work on mythology, Joseph Campbell would talk about the hero's journey which would begin with a "call"—the realization that things could not go on any longer the way they were. I think this is true on an individual as well as on a collective level.

Sometimes we ignore that call, but often it eventually gets so loud that we can no longer avoid it, and we have to heed it and begin the journey. That journey of change is often a long and challenging adventure into the terrain of what is called “the belly of the whale.” In those times, we might look back at what we have left behind, however much we knew we had to leave it, with a sense of regret—maybe it wasn't so bad, maybe we could have stayed, made it work, or we might ask ourselves why we ever left.

Certainly this has been true in my own life. There have been a few times when I have just "known" that I couldn't go on with things the way they were. There have been a few times when I have left the security of a relationship or a job or simply upped sticks and moved to an entirely new town. And, after the initial decision to leave and the enthusiasm of starting anew, there have been many nights when I've lain awake wondering why I ever left, when I've worried that I might never land on my feet again.

Yet, if I look back on my life, I am filled with gratitude for the places I have been and where I have arrived to now, knowing that I couldn't have got there without that sense of the ordeal, without having passed through the belly of the whale— the long, dark night of the soul, if you will, where nothing made sense, and I would long for the familiarity of the old.

I am sure that I have yet more such ordeals ahead— more times when I will leave behind the security of something that I know to set out on another voyage of discovery, and I imagine looking back in 10 or 20 years, amazed at where I have been with, I hope, as much gratitude as I have now.

To return to where I started this piece, in 30 years or more we might look back at the journey South Africa has been through and be amazed and delighted at what that country has achieved, despite all of the hardship and confusion it had to go through to get there.

Aboodi will lead Newfield Europe's Foundations Programme and Coach Training Programme, beginning October 19 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

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Aboodi Shabi is Newfield Europe's Head of Coaching and Training, and he leads and teaches in workshops and seminars for coaches across Europe and North America. Aboodi also works with leaders and teams, presenting on leadership and presence across Europe. He is also an invited facilitator on mastery in coaching for various European coaching schools. Visit his blog at www.aboodishabi.com.