Transformers

Do you remember the Transformers movies? How about the old Transformers TV show? Me neither, really. I do remember the catchy slogan, “Transformers, more than meets the eye,” in that odd robotic voice, and I know that there are these flashy looking cars just driving around town when BAM! Before you know it, they’ve turned into big alien robot thingies.

I attended a Partnership for Youth Empowerment workshop this week that was all about human transformers. Well, okay, it was more like transformations inside of humans. The basic premise was this: if you really want to help people, train people, teach people, they need to experience an internal change. In addition to teaching us how to help people get to the point where they are willing to shift internally, we experienced a change ourselves.

My transformation was a big one. Through a series of activities, conversations, and buckets of tears, I burrowed my way down to a big, fat, ugly belief about myself that I’ve been walking around with for…forever. I’m no stranger to this process. I’ve gone digging for other ugly bits before. I know how to painstakingly extract them, look them in the eye, and bid them adieu. But it was still hard. Exhausting. It’s like the transformer car is all rusty and its metal frame is bent and it’s been a car for so long it’s forgotten it can be anything else at all. Still, I uncovered it. I held it up to the light. I examined it and knew that it didn’t serve me. That it had never served me (unlike some ugly bits that serve as protective little soldiers). And I knew that I needed to let it go. When the time came, however, I clung to it like a life raft.

If you have yet to go on this adventure of mining for the things that are holding you back (perhaps because you still think they are “you”), let me tell you something. No matter how putrid, how distorted, how dark the thing you’ve found is, you want to keep it. You want to curl up with it in bed and stroke it and hold it forever and ever. Why? Because it’s all you know. It’s comfortable. It’s familiar. And the thought of letting it go is terrifying. Who are you without it? If it goes, is there even anything left there at all? Scary stuff, this letting go business.

In the end, I did choose to let it go. I’m so happy that I did. I’m one step closer to being the best version of myself. But today, I want to talk about that transformation process. You see, a light bulb came on for me this week.

I was at dinner with Americans and Ugandans, discussing our workshop and our lives when one man said something that really struck me. We were talking about the caning of children in schools here, and he said, “Regardless of where it came from, it is our culture now. Letting it go would be like a death. We don’t know who we are without it.” And I got it. For the first time, I really got it. Peace Corps volunteers are not here presenting new ideas to people who are unwilling to change. We are here inviting them to let go of the only thing they know, the only thing they have ever known. And yes, a lot of what we’re asking them to give up is ugly. It’s not serving them. But it’s them, or it’s been with them for so long that it feels like them. And what will they have and who will they be without it?

When the problem is framed in this way, I think, “Who am I to judge them for not wanting to change? Who am I to criticize them for the pace at which they are willing to let go?” And my view of my role, suddenly, has changed. I’m here attempting to help people make an inner transformation. First, I need to help them feel safe enough to really look at the things they’ve always done. To hold them up to the light and see them as they are. Then my job is simply to invite them to let go, one small bit at a time, and let them choose when or if they do so. It’s a slow process. Very slow. And each person’s transformation will look different and be different. Inner transformation cannot be measured in the number of libraries built or workshops held or test scores improved. Inner transformation may not show at all at first. And, you know, I’m okay with that.

I get to work and live and be in this beautiful green Eden, with beautiful, kind people. I get to make offers of change to myself and to others. I get to slowly transform into the person I want to be. It is enough.

PYE & In Movement Workshop Participants