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submitted by David Hyde
In January of 1999, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and two days later had my job of 17 years eliminated. Those were a few very cold and dark days in January for my family and me. It was important to treat my cancer and then to decide what direction I should take with my life.
My training, experience and conditioning had been within the corporate community for the past 25 years. I had learned to be competent analytically, to manage people, to lead and to be a team player. I had learned a great deal about how to manage customer relations and to meet expectations of customers, of my employees and of my leaders. I was very good at taking care of other people, just not me.
In a good analytical fashion, I spent a long time researching options for treatments and going to consultations in Portland, Maine and Boston. I spoke with people across the country about their cancers, their choice of treatments and their outcomes. I decided on brachy therapy, radioactive seed implants, which was not the conventional treatment but had lots of potential.
During my surgery for seed implants, I read a book by William Bridges, a management consultant, called "Transitions." Bridges' premise is that in a transition there is an ending, a neutral zone and a beginning. Our tendency is go from ending to beginning because being in that neutral zone can be terrifying with no direction or identity in a world that places so much value on what you as defining who you are. I was in that neutral zone and realized that it was important to value that time and space before I made my next move. However, the big challenge for me was that all of the voices (mine and those of friends and family) were recommending which next job to pursue and where to go.
I knew the value of that time for renewal and reflection was critical to my next steps. The natural world was and is a very familiar and comfortable space for me. So to sort it out, during my recovery I went kayaking out on Casco Bay off the coast of Maine and realized how liberating and comfortable that felt. From that experience, the concept for Two Roads Maine was developed.
The premise was that taking people who were in that neutral zone into the natural would be an extension of their healing process. The natural world has long been a source of solace and renewal, and it seemed most appropriate for our times. We are a goal driven society, wired to the max with little appreciation for stepping out of that swirl to reflect on who we are or where our lives are taking us, especially if you are suddenly dealing with a major transition like a cancer diagnosis.
The plan was to create a model that was simple yet effective in creating the time away in community with others who had experienced a major transition. "Trips" would be designed to offer a variety of settings and locations, some requiring outdoor skills and others not requiring those skills. The variety of trips offered were designed to meet the different needs or interests of a participant, would allow them time to spend 2-3 hours per day alone, would provide time for conversation and community and would be done in a beautiful natural setting.
The name for Two Roads came from Robert Frost's poem, The Road Not Taken, which I had learned at age 12 and had always believed that I would use in my life. I just had not planned for it under these circumstances. The poem, for me, was about coming to that place where the road split and you had to make a decision to continue on the known, familiar way or to take the risk of the other "path, because it was grassy and wanted wear." It was at that point in my life a move away from the known into a world that would challenge me but allow me to grow and to utilize many of my personal and professional skills. It was in the classic sense, high risk and high reward.
It has certainly been both. We started our first program with one woman who was a breast cancer survivor who wanted to go kayaking. I had to start somewhere and what better situation could I ask for than one which would test the process, the concept and the physical demands. It was very successful and affirmed the process and the idea of limiting the group size to enhance the time together. It reinforced the belief that multiple settings and level of challenge would be the optimal approach.
Since that humble beginning, we have taken over 300 people through meditation programs, canoeing and kayaking trips, traveled to Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia, driven to Canada to a house surrounded by fields and hardwoods. We have had cancer survivors and patients, people who had been through a divorce or had lost a loved one and some people whose lives were in transition and wanted that time in community and in nature. We have general programs which are mixed groups of men and women, specific programs such as Women with Breast cancer or people with MS or kids whose sibling had died from cancer. And the outcome of all this work, of this decision to take another path? It is perhaps best captured in a quote from one of the participants:
"I want you to know how truly wonderful I feel and how much of that I think is due to my remarkably healing experiences with Two Roads....I believe the extraordinary experiences in nature which you provided me helped me resolve a lot of emotional pain and to move into a place of deeper acceptance of where I am, which in turn has freed me to feel more joy than has been present for a long time. I am so grateful."
David Hyde is the founder of Two Roads Maine. His website is
http://www.tworoadsmaine.org.
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