Life Outside the Comfort Zone
Coming of age. In many cultures, it’s a name given to the passage from childhood to adulthood. Yet more and more, I’m understanding “coming of age” as a rite of passage from one chapter of my life to another. And there have been many—major transitions or changes that I had to grow into—times that stretched my awareness and understanding of who I am, why I’m here, how life works, and what I bring to the world. There were long periods living outside my comfort zone, “breaking open” to new possibilities and new response-abilities within myself. Perhaps you can relate.
This week, I become 69 years old and enter my 70th year. I didn’t have specific expectations of what my life would be at 69, yet I admit I didn’t expect another “coming of age.” I didn’t expect that the whole world would be “breaking open.” I didn’t expect to be doing some of the things I’m doing or ways I’ve become involved in my local community. Nor did I expect to become even more passionate about things I care deeply about.
However, as I look back over almost seven decades and so many “coming of age” passages, I’m discovering how much of my life I have, in fact, lived outside my comfort zone. Dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once wrote to choreographer Agnes de Mille about the “queer divine dissatisfaction” within us and the “blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” I admit that the “unrest” within me doesn’t always feel so “blessed,” nor the “dissatisfaction” so “divine!” Yet having felt it all my life, why would I expect now to be any different?! I’m finally starting to make peace with it. Which is a good thing, since I seem to be well into yet another “coming of age”—another rite of passage.
Each “Coming of Age” Led to the Next
When I was 15 years old, my family moved from a small southern Kentucky town to a big midwestern city, Indianapolis. The number of students in my new high school was more than half the total population of my former small town. It felt like a tectonic shift in my life—my first big “coming of age” experience. Leaving home to start my university studies back in Kentucky was the next. And then at 22 years old, I left Kentucky and the southern culture I had grown up in to begin graduate school in Princeton, New Jersey. Suddenly, more than a thousand miles separated me from everything I had ever known. It felt like I had moved to another country. The language was the same, yet customs and social life and ways of doing things seemed very different. Little did I know then that it was a rite of passage into a new life. I would never return to the South to live again. Looking back now, I realize how much of my life I had already spent outside my comfort zone. It was only the beginning.
The summer after finishing graduate school and before starting my first year on the voice faculty of a well-known conservatory, I came out as a gay man. Although it was liberating to no longer live in hiding, it was also painful and humiliating when some personal and professional relationships suddenly changed. This was the early 1980s—a different era—and it seemed that there were now multiple “outside” zones of not belonging. In time, I learned to adapt and find my way.
Eight years later, moving to New York City brought another rite of passage, and then another 15 years later as I made the career transition from teaching opera and theater singers to life coaching, writing, and ultimately teaching and mentoring leaders and coaches internationally. I loved my life and work, even as the “blessed unrest” within me made me wonder if I would always live outside the comfort zone.
Starting in 2020, the COVID years were, for me, a “coming of age” deeper in the heart of my being than I had known before. For many of us, those years brought great challenges and losses, yet also gifts and opportunities that we may not have discovered any other way. The whole world is still sorting out the after-effects of those years. Yet those years laid the foundation for the “coming of age” passage I’m experiencing now.
The world keeps breaking open, and so do I
As I enter my 70th year, the world keeps breaking open. And so do my heart and soul. Feelings and emotions run the gamut from raw and painful to tender and joyful. Daily life can be both liberating and sobering, empowering and humbling. Yet the core of who I am keeps getting stronger and more solid, even as it also gets more flexible. It bends more easily so as not to break when harsh winds blow. These are exciting, challenging, and sometimes daunting times, both personally and collectively. Yet when I give attention to space in my breath, stillness in my soul, and grounding in my presence, what appears to be challenging or even daunting becomes less so. Most of the time, I find my way. And when I don’t—well, I learn a lot.
In August 2020, five months into the pandemic lockdown, I wrote the original version of the poem below. It expressed where I was at that time. Having now added only a few lines, it also gives voice to where I am today—to my going-on-70 “coming of age.”
Take a deep breath, and then another, and allow the words and feelings to pour through you. Pay attention to what they touch inside you.
Do I Dare?
Do I dare
touch
the hidden places of the
heart?Do I dare
sit down in
feelings and thoughts that are so
tender, so raw, so
real?Do I dare
linger there
longer than is
comfortable?Do I dare
let love and anger
and hope and despair
and confusion and clarity
and fear and optimism
and grief and gratitude…
all cry out within me
at the same time?Do I dare
meet others
in the hidden places of their hearts?
Even when it’s not convenient?Do I dare
hold in my heart
people I don’t know,
places I’ve never been?Do I dare
stand tall and be love,
sometimes quietly,
sometimes boldly?Do I dare
shine my light
with greater
intention and purpose
than ever before?Do I dare
speak my truth,
even when it is
not what others
want to hear?Do I dare
—Alan Seale
live all of who I am
every day?
If I’m going to live
true to the heart of my being,
how can I not?
As I enter my 70th year, I’m “coming of age” yet again in this breaking open world. I’m making peace with living outside the comfort zone. I’m getting better at accepting the “blessed unrest” in my soul as the driving force of my life. I’m learning. I’m growing. I’m coming of age again. And for that, I am so grateful.
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