Our family just got back from a 1-night overnighter. We have wanted to get away for a family touchpoint and when the temperature reached 110 degrees, well – as good as a time as any to go to a place with some air conditioning and a pool!
Most of the time we spent was just hanging out and laughing as a family, but we spent about 30 minutes each day having some intentional conversations about where we are in cultural re-entry since I would mark it to almost the year point where re-entry really kicked in for us. And the school year just kicked off which has seemed to resurface some of the re-entry themes. So a good time to connect.
Here’s one conversation we had that was really insightful and maybe it’s something that may benefit you now or in the future. We talked about reframing reentry as we move from year 1 to year 2.
This idea came from The Reentry Roadmap by Cate Brubaker. This is a resource full of a lot of practical processing tools and insights related to both processing the past, the present, and laying the foundation for what’s next and how to move forward from a place of integration. This resource does not offer much from a spiritual standpoint, but there are a lot of great and helpful things on the practical, emotional, and relational sides of things, including the basis for what our family did here this weekend.
The reframing idea is presented as a way of shifting focus to a way of perceiving the season of transition in a way that can be freeing, lifegiving, and add meaning in ways that serve a person as they go through the process. So there’s a naming or recognition of how someone has been thinking about reentry and then a reframing of that picture. In the book, there are some creative ways of using types of fruits to capture different word pictures, but I’m not that creative.
When our family did this activity, it was after at least a full solid year of re-entry so I didn’t use the exact language from the book. So each in our family was asked to share,
“What label would you place on your experience of reentry or what did you fundamentally think the past year involved for you (and for us)?”
Answers:
- Survival
- Climbing a mountain (one mentioned the little engine that could in thinking all year, “I think I can, I think I can…”)
- Grief and sadness
- Constant risks
- Season of disorientation
This past year was truly a year of survival in many ways for all of us. The reframing picture is attractive because none of us want another year of survival. So the question was asked,
“What would be a different, but motivating way of framing your reentry transition so that it helps you grow in some of your excitement for what the coming year can be?
Brubaker offers a list of 12 or so different possible words. Here’s what was shared by the five of us in our family:
- An opportunity
- A transition and a blank canvas
- A gift
- A rebirth
- A rebirth and reinvention
This little exercise allowed us to have some great conversations over what each person in the family was really wanting to see this next year in some way or form. It provided a positive and encouraging word picture that conveyed some hopes and dreams. It was a sign of progress. While there are still dimensions of survival, we’re no longer dominated by just making it from one day to the next. It feels good to start to recognize some things that are meaningful and life-giving moving forward.
It will still be a work in progress and it’s slower than we want. But it was fun to have a moment where even though the end is not in sight, there’s at least a recognition or some small sign of excitement at what might be true on the other side of the transition and even progressively more true as we keep moving forward in it together.
So the two questions we discussed for this re-entry family activity again:
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“What label would you place on your experience of reentry or what did you fundamentally think the past year involved for you (and for us)?”
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“What would be a different, but motivating way of framing your reentry transition so that it helps you grow in some of your excitement for what the coming year can be?
