How Your Terrifying Transition Is Actually Your Path to Transformation

When Wasteland Becomes Wonderland: Lessons from the the Mahabharata

Welcome! I’d love to learn more about how I can support you in this space.
Can you take a quick minute to let me know in this feedback survey?

---

You wake up each morning with that familiar heaviness. The routine that once energized you now drains you. The career you built with such passion has become a treadmill of exhaustion. You're going through the motions, collecting paychecks, and wondering if this is all there is.

But deep inside, a faint dream stirs—a different life, a new expression of your gifts, work that aligns with your soul. But each time that vision begins to crystallize, anxious questions arise: How would I support my family? What about healthcare? What if I fail? Who would I even be without this identity I've spent decades building?

So you stuff your dream away and stay. Another day. Another year. The known discomfort feels safer and more manageable—at least for a little while longer—than the unknown possibility.

But what if the very uncertainty you fear is not something to shrink back from?
What if the unknown is actually the doorway to your becoming?
What if what appears to be an intimidating wilderness contains a paradise far greater than you could ever imagine?

You are not the first person to stand at this crossroads.
You are not the first person to hesitate.
I’ve been there, and I’m there with you now!

And we’re not the only ones. In fact, our lives are echoing an ancient pattern of transformation. Countless ancient stories explore this terrain, carrying powerful insights that can equip us with the courage to step into the unknown. One such story is found in the ancient Hindu epic, the Mahabharata.

I recommend Ramesh Menon’s delicious, accessible translation of this sprawling epic.

The Wasteland Becomes a Wonderland

The five Pandava brothers, sons of the deceased Pandu, were the rightful heirs to a vast kingdom. But their uncle—the blind King Dhritarashtra—and one hundred cousins (the Kauravas) fought and deceived them at every turn, even attempting murder, which sent the Pandavas into hidden exile.

But, eventually, the time came for the Pandavas to emerge from exile. They returned with the radiant princess Draupadi, the greatest warriors on their side, and the joyful support of the people of the kingdom behind them. As a result, King Dhritarashtra’s advisors, much to the disdain of his sons, urged him to avoid conflict by dividing the kingdom.

And so he did. But rather than offering an equal division, the king gave his nephews Khandavaprastha—a city of ruins in a distant, desolate wilderness—while his sons retained the fertile, developed lands, and magnificent palace of Hastinapura. It seemed like a cruel joke, an "inheritance" of dust and thorns when they had expected a thriving kingdom.

Rather than cling to what they thought was their destiny, however, the Pandavas accepted this apparent injustice and journeyed to their inhospitable wilderness territory. After arriving and surveying the cursed terrain, Yudhishtira, the eldest brother and heir apparent, resiliently proclaimed, “I am glad my uncle gave me this ruined land for my kingdom. At least, now we have a challenge before us. I am grateful for a destiny that tests us.”

Then something remarkable happened.

While the royal brothers fell into a deep sleep, their divine cousin Krishna called upon the gods to roll back the curse on the land and raise the city into glory. The gods got to work, and when the brothers awoke, they encountered:

Dense green forests, with hills, wooded valleys and rivers gushing through them.
Wild creatures drinking from charmed pools of sweet water.
Tree-arms heavy with nesting birds of every feather.
Dazzling streets, glittered with jewel-dust.
A glorious palace with crystal steps, sweeping halls with unreachable ceilings, and floors of polished stone.

What was a wasteland was now a wonderland. The barren Khandavaprastha became Indraprastha—a gleaming city more magnificent than Hastinapura itself had ever been. Having completed his transformative work, the divine Krishna departed, leaving the Pandavas to govern their new paradise. Word of the miracle in the wilderness spread like fire and, soon, people from Hastinapura and all over the realm came streaming in to make their home in this glorious, reborn kingdom.

---

---

The Cost of Staying in the Familiar

This ancient story holds much wisdom for our modern lives, especially when it comes to navigating transitions.

Even when something new is stirring within us—a hope or a dream for our lives, careers, or relationships—it’s common to view it as a wilderness, inhospitable and intimidating. The unknown simply asks too much of us. It’s too costly. So we decide to retreat back to the familiarity and comfort of what is.

But the journey of the Pandavas reframes things.
It reminds us that, while the cost of leaving the known may be significant, the cost of staying is often far greater—

What wonders we miss
When we choose to cling to the supposed
Certainty, security, and stability of the familiar and, instead,
Refuse to embrace
The unknown of the
Dream
Calling to us.

Now let’s take a look at the wisdom this story carries—three guideposts to give us courage for the age-old journey of leaving the familiar and navigating the unknown, so we can claim an inheritance far greater than we ever could have imagined.

1. Disappoint Yourself

Don’t cling to a kingdom you’ve outgrown.

As they stand on the brink of descending into the soul journey, I often hear my coaching clients and countless others ask questions like these:

How can I make a shift while maintaining stability?
How can I pursue what is calling to me and keep all of my commitments?
How can I step into the unknown and guarantee it won’t affect my career?

The answer?

The journey within—the quest to reclaim who you are and why you are here—makes no promises about the surface circumstances of your life (And this is why so many refuse the call to adventure!). It only guarantees what will transpire in your depths: you will reclaim your wholeness and experience a greater sense of aliveness that will radiate out into the world through love.

In fact, any attachment to security interferes with our growth and keeps us from our greatest possibilities. But this clinging doesn’t just hinder us. It harms us too. It depletes our life force. We get worn and weary. We start to sink.

We might initially call this “burnout,” like I did a decade a go when the obsessive and high-speed pace with which I approached my work as a pastor and community builder brought me to a breaking point. But, as I discovered, the exhaustion I was experiencing wasn’t just about trying to do too much, it was the result of my allegiance to outdated operating patterns that I thought were a source of security—chasing after success, perfection, and the approval of others. I was clinging to a kingdom that I had outgrown.

Read more about my journey in The Way Home.

While it took my years to let go of what I thought was my way forward through the world, the Pandavas seemed to adapt more rapidly! They were due more than the deserted, dilapidated half-kingdom they were given. But they demonstrated a quick courage and relinquished their entitlement to their inheritance. This enabled them to receive the wasteland-turned-wonderland that was beyond what they could have imagined.

Now’s the time to cheat
on all the names
you’ve taught the world to call you,
to be unfaithful
to who you thought you wanted
to become.
―James Pearson, “Tradecraft”

The 20th century guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi used to say, “To have a disappointment, you have to have an appointment.” When we cling to an expectation, he’s saying, we are bound to be let down. But there’s also in an invitation in his words:

Dis-appoint yourself.

In other words, release your appointments for who you thought you were. Let go of the expectations you used to have. This is the path to receiving the possibilities and gifts that nature has in store for you.

---

2. Embrace the Unknown

Welcome the wisdom of the wasteland.

The ruined lands of Khandavaprastha appeared inhabitable. It was no place to settle, much less pass through. It would have been easy for the Pandavas to be afraid or complain or turn back.

But that’s not what happened. Yudhishtira expressed gratitude for the wilderness. He welcomed it as a challenge, a test provided by destiny that would uncover their hidden strength.

The wilderness of the unknown in our own lives looks barren. We can’t see a way forward. It feels impossible. We come face to face with our fears and doubts.
What if this doesn’t work out?
Can I really pull this off?
What if I get lost?
What will others think of me? Will I be alone?

Allowing all of these questions to arise is critical. But we must not rush to resolve them. If we have the patience to remain still, these fears and doubts will dissipate and we will begin to awaken to what lies beneath—the hidden gifts of the wild unknown:

• Relocation - The unknown is a place where your center of gravity mysteriously shifts from ego to soul, from being externally referenced to internally referenced. From performing according to the expectations of others to acting in alignment with your authentic self.

• Revelation - As disorienting as it can be, the unknown reveals that love is at the core of who you are. It signals that your full rebirth is ahead. It gives you clues about what is emerging.

• Regeneration - The unknown is a place of healing that recharges you for what is ahead. In this season of wintering—withdrawal from your familiar roles—you gain presence, courage, strength, and resilience for the fuller expression of your purpose that is ahead.

“Many will laugh at my foolishness. But no one will laugh more than I laughed at myself. So I overcame scorn. But when I had overcome it, I was near to my soul, and she could speak to me, and I was soon to see the desert becoming green.”
—Carl Jung, The Red Book

I have enough data from my own life, from those I’ve accompanied on this journey, and others throughout history who’ve embarked on this journey to know that the unknown not only holds, but generously gives these gifts.

That being said, there is an ebb and flow to it. Over that last few years, since I departed from the vocational path I was on to answer my soul’s calling, I have experienced the wasteland-to-wonderland movement too many times to count. But you see what that means, right? That the wonderland sometimes feels like it reverts to the wasteland!

There was the miracle of a new job that aligned with my evolution, but then I got laid off.
There was the unexpected book deal, but then the realities and challenges of the publishing landscape.
There were the open doors of prisons inviting me to teach meditation, but then the funding shortages.
There was a flood new coaching clients and speaking opportunities, but then seasons of the flow drying up.

While I’ve felt increasingly at home in the wilderness, even now I sometimes second-guess myself. Did I get this right? Am I missing something? Is there a way to go back to the way things were? And yet, I know that the overall arc of this journey is towards an abundant, flourishing new kingdom. Each seeming season of desolation is a part of my evolution and expansion. Each test gives me greater capability to fulfill my destiny. Nothing is wasted in the wasteland.

For more on these themes, check out this brief, brilliant conversation with poet David Whyte.

---

3. Give Yourself to Grace

Surrender your striving.

When King Dhritarashtra, counseled by his advisors, announced that he was giving the Pandavas the lesser half the kingdom, Krishna had a mischievous twinkle in his eye. As the lord of love, compassion, and protection, he knew the true economy of all things: we live in a graced universe. A little while later, he demonstrated this grace while his cousins were deep asleep, creating “a magical city and emerald wilderness for the Pandavas, out of desolation.”

This approach to transformation stands in stark contrast to the hustle culture that dominates so much of our modern world. Almost everywhere we are told that our success is directly proportional to the amount of effort we put into something. We have to do everything harder, better, faster, stronger in order to achieve what we are after. Not so with the way of grace. It says that our great inheritance is found through receiving help, stillness, and effortlessness.

“Concerning all acts of initiative or creation, there is one elementary truth... that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. ... A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way.”
—W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

Receiving Help

How will I do this? we ask ourselves at the crossroads, hesitating to step towards the dream―sometimes murky, sometimes crystal clear―that is calling to us. The answer is, You won’t. At least, You can’t do it ALONE. Indeed only you can descend to the depths within you, but this endeavor will always involve accompaniment. As Joseph Campbell says, “One has only to know and trust, and the ageless guardians will appear.”

Giving yourself to grace means opening yourself up to assistance in all of its forms. The thunderous voice of the divine or the wise whisper of a child. The last breaths of the dying or the presence of the ordinary. A therapist, coach, or spiritual director or all the wild things.

A few months ago, I co-taught a workshop with Chip Conley at the Modern Elder Academy (see my reflections here and here). The participants were going through an exercise in which they identified and released limiting beliefs and mindsets. One by one, they stepped in front of the group, named what they were surrendering, and symbolically threw it into the fire. As one of the facilitators, I wasn’t expected to participate. But I was so inspired by their vulnerability and courage that I said Fuck it, I’m participating too! I stepped up in front of the kindhearted crew and confessed my limiting belief: I’ll never be able to make a living following my purpose. I let go of this lie and open myself to living in abundance in every conceivable way.

And you want to know what happened? Help arrived. Over the course of the past few months, unbidden assistance has graced my life, both from those who were present, but also beyond! Donations to my non-profit supporting my prison meditation work. Business mentorship. Meditation course and coaching clients. Personal coaching. Endorsements. Financial planning assistance. Collaborators. Workshop invitations.

I had slipped back into self-sufficiency and striving, but these compadres (as MEA calls workshop participants) reawakened me to the way of grace.

Join me for my “Discovering the Hero’s Journey at Midlife” workshop at MEA’s Baja campus in October.

Stillness

Stillness is the centered place between striving and squandering. As I explain in The Way Home:

To strive is to reach anxiously into the future—demanding clarity, grabbing at control, attaching to outcomes. Striving worships success. It tries to play God.

To squander is to slip away into the past. Squandering is stagnant. It refuses to carry out a calling. It runs from risk, fears failure, and stays away from sacrifice. Squandering buries treasure.

But stillness is the narrow way between these two approaches to life. Stillness remains in the here and now. The unknown is its playground. Change is its friend. It is no stranger to surrender. Stillness is grateful for what has been and welcomes what is to come. It cooperates with the flow of life.

So how do you tune into stillness?

You practice it.

Start by subtracting. Take an inventory of your life and identify areas where you are overcommitted. Do you notice any of the following?

• Lack of work boundaries

• Too many social engagements

• Bingeing media

• Overindulged hobbies

• Draining relationships

• Overconsumption of food, alcohol, or other mind-altering substances

• Excessive consumerism

Determine what you can eliminate and where you can set boundaries.

Then add a stillness practice: solitude, reflective journaling, soulful reading, time in nature, meditation. Make it non-negotiable. Your most important “meeting” of the day. Build a habit.

Effortlessness

This past week I stood before sixteen women at a minimum security correctional facility in southeastern Wisconsin. It was day one of the four-session meditation course I teach. I told them what I tell all of my meditation students: Success in this practice isn’t based on effort. It’s based on effortlessness. How effortlessly can you practice? How effortlessly can you repeat the mantra? To what degree can you release your expectations and desire for control? This is the key to success.

The same is true for the journey within, the path to your destiny. I always tell my coaching clients that embarking on this quest to reclaim who you really are is the most important thing you can do in your life (and inevitably and necessarily transforms the hurting world we live in), so go ALL IN.

But then I add this: Can you also accept yourself AS IS? Can you trust that you are already loved? That you already belong? That you already have everything you need within you? Embracing yourself AS IS signals the effortlessness that is critical to walking in grace.

* * *

After his massive miracle, Krishna tells his cousins it is time for him to leave. But, he says, I am always with you.

Grace is always present. The question is: will you stay open or close yourself off to it?

---

Welcome Wonder, Discover the Wonderland

Disappointing yourself.
Embracing the unknown.
Giving yourself to grace.

These are three of the primary tasks that empower you to move beyond your limitations, through uncertainty, and into the life that is waiting for you. But they really are all part of the same thing: welcoming wonder to discover the wonderland within you.

As this chapter of the Pandavas’ inheritance story draws to a close, it says this about their experience with Krishna:

This was just their first glimpse of his uncanny powers.

So as you take your first step into the unknown and experience an encounter with grace, remember this: your course in miracles is just getting started.

Just imagine what’s coming next!

---

Speaking of Help…

Thanks for being here—and reading all the way to the bottom!
I mentioned help… and there are three simple ways you can support me so I can support you and others on the inner journey to wholeness and purpose: Subscribe (basic or paying) to this newsletter, Share this newsletter, and order, rate, and review my book. Thank you!

Let me help you…

For more on how we can work together, read below!