Twice-Born

People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life.

I don’t think that is what we’re really seeking.

I think that what we’re seeking

Is an experience of being alive…

So that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

-              Joseph Campbell

The words above are the opening lines to a chapter in the book, “Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow” by Elizabeth Lesser. 

It is in the same book that I was introduced to the concept of Twice-Born.  Sounds like a character in a horror film, but it was apparently William James who spoke about two kinds of people: the Once-Born and the Twice-Born.  As Lesser describes it, Once-Born people spend their whole lives on a straight path, in the familiar space of what is expected of them, what is defined acceptable and prescribed to be desirable by society, a living expression of the identity they have taken on. 

To a Once-Born, life can feel safe, settled, steady.  But underneath is a sense of disquiet.  Maybe it feels like a chronic irritation, exhaustion or burnout, an undercurrent of anxiety or unease, distractibility, even repetitively making the same mistakes, or numbing by various poisons (addictions of all kinds including societally condoned addictions to work or staying constantly busy, doom scrolling, binging episodes of any mildly interesting TV show, food, sex, and substance addictions).  It is when in the very quiet moments, you hear a voice in you asking, “Is this all there is to life?”

And if you pay attention, you might start to hear what Lesser so eloquently calls your “soul hunger”. 

A Twice-Born person, according to Lesser:

“Pay’s attention when the soul pokes its head through the clouds of a half-lived life.  Whether through choice or calamity, the Twice-Born person goes into the woods, loses the straight way, makes mistakes, suffers loss, and confronts that which needs to change within himself in order to live a more genuine and radiant life.”

For some of us, the invitation to be Twice-Born is on the other side of self-reckoning.  Sometimes we need to be broken apart before we are willing to face ourselves.  To quote Lesser, “every catastrophe can hand us exactly what we need to awake into who we really are.”  Further, “Twice-Born people use the difficult changes in their outer lives to make the harder changes within.”

Sometimes it is unexpected adversity that knocks our lives off track and us to our feet, sometimes we find ourselves at a rock-bottom of our own making, sometimes it is simply that we can no longer endure the hum of disquiet, but each is a sign that something within us calls to be awakened, each cracks us open and provides an opportunity to venture into the dark woods of our soul to discover what it is truly longing for.   

Anyone who has had to reckon with themselves meets this choice of remaining Once-Born or of diving deep into the oft hidden parts of ourselves to wrestle with everything we thought we knew, ask ourselves hard questions, take responsibility for our lives, uncover who we really are, find new direction and meaning, and emerge reborn and alive. 

Therein lies the gift at the end of this difficult journey of rebirth, experiencing the rapture of being alive.

Aliveness comes from a rapture with being alive.  Suddenly, life feels fuller and brighter.  The gift of watching a sunset, witnessing a bird fly, noticing the colors in the sky, catching a whiff of sea air, tasting a piece of creamy chocolate, watching your child laugh with abandon, all become sources of rapture.  It comes from gratitude, from joy, from recognizing the miracle that life is.

I find the idea of a Twice-Born, and the notion that our true pursuit is a sense of aliveness, profoundly compelling.  These concepts resonate deeply.  

I believe it is because I realize I am a Twice-Born. 

My Twice-born self is about 5 years old and still learning and maturing.  While I don’t think the details of that rebirth are necessary here, I want to share how profound a shift it has been for me.  It is like I woke up with new vision.  Seeing the world differently, interpreting life through a new lens and mindset, having greater inner flexibility and choice in how I showed up in the world, but above all experiencing deeper gratitude, joy, hope, sense of possibility, and aliveness!

The resistance to becoming Twice-Born is that it requires giving up our Once-Born self.  Letting go of old identities, practiced patterns of thought, habitual ways of being, and perhaps parts of our lives that supported the Once-Born self. 

My Once-Born self had walked a path of self-destruction, bound by narratives that kept me small and unhappy—one where I was powerless, merely a victim, and another where my worth was measured by what I could sacrifice. These stories drained my strength, keeping me stuck in cycles that left me disconnected from my own needs, my own power, and my own responsibility.  I thought the narratives would protect me.  Instead, they kept me feeling unworthy, powerless, and alone.  Even though my Once-Born narratives did not serve me, they were familiar, comfy like an old pair of sweatpants, and they are hard to give up. 

I would be lying if I said I am completely reborn and have never looked back.  My Twice-Born self is still young.  The pull of the Once-Born, the familiar well-carved mental grooves, the old ways of thinking and being, are constantly calling.  When I am tired, overwhelmed, or depleted, the call is louder.  But once having seen through new eyes, I cannot unsee what I now know to be true.  A new option in terms of thought, feeling, and/or behavior, is now always available to me. 

Still unconvinced?  I might have been too, but I have had several encounters in recent years with people who have not seen me in a while, and a few have independently remarked that I seem quite different.  I now wonder how I used to come off!

Here is the thing, some extreme life situations notwithstanding, half-living is not a condition we need to accept.  And we do not need to wait for calamity or someone or something outside of ourselves to come “save” us.  Transformation, no matter the external circumstance, is an inside job.  The power and answers are within us, but it starts with being willing to listen to the calls of our soul.

Lesser suggests asking ourselves some deep questions:

What is that weight that holds you back?

What inside you is saying no?

Are you willing to look at yourself? To take responsibility for your own life?

Are you willing to let something die, in order for something new to arise?

What must die?

What wants to live?

Maybe you can journal answers to these questions. Perhaps meditate on them.  Keep pushing yourself to search deeper. 

Your soul is calling. Your second life is waiting.