Horizon Lines: The Nature of Change in our Lives
written by David McCallum
Photo by Oleksandr Voloshchenko on Unsplash
There are times in life when we know something needs to change, but we don't yet know what that change looks like.
Take a moment to consider a time in your life when you experienced tension like this. Perhaps a relationship no longer felt right. A career that once provided meaning had become draining. We may find ourselves asking questions that don't have easy answers: What do I really want? Who am I becoming? What happens if I let go of what I know?
These are the kinds of questions that often prompt us to seek the support of a therapist.
They are also questions that bring us to what poet David Whyte calls the horizon.
What happens when we reach the edge?
We tend to think of a horizon as a destination – a place somewhere in the distance that we might eventually reach. But Whyte's writing invites us to think about the horizon differently. It is an edge: the point where what we know ends and something else begins.
Psychologically, we encounter these edges throughout the course of our lives.
We may know that an old way of coping isn't working anymore, but not yet know what will replace it. We may recognize that we need to set a boundary without knowing how the relationship will change as a result. We may sense that we have outgrown an identity, even though we don't yet have another one to take its place.
This liminal space can be uncomfortable.
In therapy, people sometimes describe it as feeling stuck. But perhaps “stuck” isn't always the best word. Sometimes we are not stuck; we are between versions of ourselves.
Why does uncertainty feel so difficult?
The human mind naturally wants resolution.
We want to know what is going to happen. We want a plan. We want reassurance that the decision we are making is the right one.
But personal growth rarely provides that kind of certainty.
One of the difficult—and potentially transformative—aspects of psychotherapy is learning that we don't always have to know the answer before we take the next step.
Sometimes the work is simply becoming more comfortable with not knowing.
This might mean sitting with grief rather than immediately trying to “move on.” It might mean noticing anger without judging ourselves for having it. It might mean admitting that we want something different from the life we have built.
The horizon asks us to tolerate the space between recognizing something and knowing what to do about it.
Starting Close In
One of David Whyte's most memorable invitations is to “start close in.”
When we feel overwhelmed by questions about our future, it can be tempting to search for a complete answer. Instead, therapy often begins with something much smaller:
What happened today?
What did you feel when that happened?
What did you need but not ask for?
What are you afraid might happen?
What are you noticing right now?
These seemingly simple questions can open surprisingly large doors.
We don't necessarily have to understand our whole life before we can make a meaningful change. Sometimes the next step becomes visible only after we pay attention to what is happening right in front of us.
The Person We Are Becoming
One of the assumptions we can carry into adulthood is that we are supposed to figure out who we are and then remain that person.
Psychotherapy often complicates this idea.
Perhaps identity is less fixed than we imagine. Perhaps there are parts of ourselves that have not yet had the opportunity to develop.
Someone who has spent years being the “responsible one” may discover a desire for spontaneity. Someone who has always avoided conflict may discover a capacity for healthy anger. Someone who has organized their life around other people's expectations may begin to wonder what they actually want.
This can be unsettling.
It can also be liberating.
The horizon reminds us that we cannot always see the person we are becoming from where we currently stand.
What Therapy Offers at the Horizon
Psychotherapy cannot tell us exactly what lies beyond our personal horizon.
And perhaps it shouldn't.
The role of therapy is not necessarily to provide a map for every decision. It can instead offer a place where we can slow down, become curious, and listen more carefully to the different parts of ourselves.
A therapist can help us distinguish between these parts and the intuition of our Core Self, between an old protective pattern and a present-day need, between what we genuinely desire and what we have learned to want.
Sometimes the most important therapeutic question isn't, “What should I do?” Instead, it is:
“What is trying to become possible here?”
That question shifts the focus from solving ourselves to understanding ourselves.
Living with an Unfinished Answer
David Whyte's idea of the horizon offers a helpful perspective on change: we don't have to see the entire road to take the next step.
There will always be something beyond what we currently understand.
In his poem, “Just Beyond Yourself,” David Whyte plainly states the importance of this:
“Just beyond
yourself.
It’s where you need to be.
Half a step
into
self-forgetting
and the rest
restored
by what
you’ll meet.”
Perhaps the invitation is to become a little more willing to stand at the edge – to acknowledge what we know, make room for what we don't know, and trust that clarity sometimes arrives through movement rather than before it.
The horizon is not a promise that everything will become clear.
It is an invitation to keep looking.
And sometimes, in therapy and in life, that is where true change begins.
