“To rid yourself of old patterns, focus all your energy not on struggling with the old, but on building the new.”
– Way of the Peaceful Warrior (2006) by Dan Millman
Have you ever felt stuck in a situation? Do you run up against the same problem over and over in a professional or personal relationship? Are you expending too much energy trying to force a solution?
When we experience a lack of flow, Life is speaking to us. The situation we are in is not responding to our method of engagement. Maybe our approach is wrong or we’ve taken the wrong path. Either way, we are being asked to grow. This may require changing our behavior, our perceptions or resolving to exit a situation.
There are times when there is a lag between identifying a problem and recognizing the solution. The space in-between can leave us feeling stuck because the solution may seem elusive. This time in-between, however, can be used to explore the undercurrents that maintain the situational inertia and potentially practice some new behaviors.
Some questions to consider:
- What ideally do you want this situation to look like?
- What is the personal need you have that is being unmet?
- How are your own behaviors maintaining the status quo?
- Are you standing firm enough in your truth?
- Are you attempting to force others to bend to your will?
- Do you need to be more authentic with others who are involved in the situation?
- What are you willing to do, free from resentment, to make things work?
If we take the time to get clear on these questions and then take meaningful action, we might be able to return a sense of continuity to the situation. However, if we are still unable to find peace through our own efforts, it may in fact, be time to walk away.
Big Wheel Keep on Turning
As an example from my own life, when I was in my early twenties, I became romantically involved with a person I had known since my early childhood. He was a kind-hearted person, fun, creative, and unfortunately, just like me, regularly engaged in some lifestyle practices that were emotionally numbing.
A few years into our relationship, I made a personal commitment to live a more conscious, healthy lifestyle and began diving into a consistent spiritual practice. Pulling myself out of the fog of perpetual numbness that I had become accustomed to, I was smacked with the reality that my relationship was never what I had convinced myself to believe. In fact, I was quite unhappy.
When I attempted to bring my concerns into conversation with my partner, they were placed back on my lap as “my problem.” He did not perceive that there was anything wrong with the way we were going about living our lives together. It was around this time that our relationship became embroiled in what seemed like a constant and painful battle of wills. I was definitely feeling stuck.
In an attempt to do my part to salvage our relationship, I focused on shoring up what I believed to be my deficiencies within the relationship. I spoke more authentically about my needs, was kinder in my approach to disagreements, tried to understand my partner’s perspective, and detached from the emotional drama that was beginning to become common-place.
There came a day when the truth finally rang clearly in my ears. What I came to understand was that we were both expending a great deal of energy trying to coerce the other to do what we wanted. The fact of the matter was we had completely different perspectives on what our relationship should look like. For either of us to acquiesce to the other’s desires would have meant living far outside of our respective truths.
Although it was sad to come to terms with the fact that our relationship wasn’t going to survive, it was a relief to finally have clarity about what needed to be done.
Closing that chapter of my life was scary at moments, but extremely liberating. Once I began the process of letting go, Life completely opened up for me. As I walked my truth into life on my own, I felt supported every step of the way. There was nothing to struggle against. It was as if Life was just waiting for me to let go and trust that everything was going to be o.k.
In retrospect, being stuck was an incredible gift. The entire process helped me to build a greater understanding of myself, my needs, and what I was looking for in a partner. It also challenged me to stretch into new ways of engaging the world. When it finally came down to making the decision to move on, I knew I had done everything that was reasonable to make things work.
Rolling on the River
If you find yourself stuck, in all likelihood, Life is asking you to step-up your game and grow. Getting back to living in the flow of Life will probably mean taking some steps outside of your comfort zone, as relying on old ways of doing things will likely not change the situation.
Growth may mean taking on new behaviors, shifting your perceptions or possibly leaving a situation that no longer serves you. If change seem daunting, it is important to bear in mind that your personal fulfillment may hang in the balance until such time as you are willing to face the challenge of moving into a different way of doing things.
At the end of the day, we are all responsible for our own happiness. Going through life with the expectation that situations and the people in them should adjust to make us happy is not very realistic. Our time is better served doing our own inner work to determine what it is we need to feel fulfilled and aligning ourselves with situations that have the greatest potential to meet that end. Life will be waiting for us there.
Owning My Shadow with My Children