Moving on

How often do you feel stuck?

Sometimes it seems like this starts to define us as human beings. We get so stuck in situations, holding on, not wanting to let go, even when it gets painful. Even when it hurt us. Even though it can feel like we are stuck in hell. At least hell is more comfortable than risking stepping into the unknown. In our own minds we believe that this will really hurt us. Regardless of whatever the reality might be.

So we stay stuck. Safe. Secure. Stuck.

What a pain in the rump!

We can work so hard to achieve our little patch of ground, our little slice of territory, and when we finally get it we can snarl and growl at anyone who comes close to threatening our little bit of hard carved security.

The dilemma is that every time that we do that, we actually create some subtle and self-imposed limits. Often without as even noticing. We may be left with a slightly uneasy or uncomfortable feeling, that may be hard to grab a hold of, like trying to catch smoke. Human beings like to make sense of their world, and so we will look for reasons when we have feelings like this.

We will look outside of us for the actions of other people, for our circumstances or events, or our environment. And we will often lay blame and go: “Ah, it is because of that person / thing / event…”

Or we may look inside of ourselves and we will dredge up any self-doubt, insecurity, self-loathing, and then go: “It is because I am not good enough, worthy to receive, or loveable enough…” and so heap scorn, blame and shame upon ourselves.

We can probably live with a little bit of this, but with all true compulsions, we add more and more to it. It becomes our go-to place, our go-to reason. It becomes our new normal.

So anything then that challenges our ‘normal’ becomes immediately a threat, and we jealously guard our territory, no matter how dysfunctional it might be. We will defend our shadow side, our limitations, to protect ourselves. And having defended our territory, and defended our limitations, we choose to stay bounded by them.

And so the cycle repeats again, and again, and again, and again.

Stepping outside of this cycle, having a pattern break, then becomes the essential step to achieve this. But how do we do this if we have never done it, and may not even be aware of it? Is this an impossible conundrum?

Impossible, no. Counter-intuitive, yes! We actually have to sacrifice our safety. We have to want a new objective, a new goal, a new reality, a new way of being, more than we want the safety and the pain associated with it.

We have to take the proverbial leap of faith into the unknown.

I recently had to do this. I believe I am an intelligent and self-aware man, I can see deeply into situations, see deeply into people, and even into myself. I was recently challenged with an underlying, logical, intelligent, practical, and even, to my mind, proven reality. Yet when I was confronted by it, I realised that there were all sorts of self-limiting beliefs attached to it. It left a subtle heaviness in my heart and soul that actually kept me out of flow with myself and the happenings around me. It was hidden in plain sight!

So I asked myself: “What if I was to just believe something different?” What if I could actually choose what it is that I choose to believe, even when there is no evidence to prove it (because I had never believed it, I had never looked for the evidence, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy). I checked in that it would do no harm to myself or others, and found that quite the opposite, it could inspire and ignite deeper hope and call to action in myself and to others.

So I changed my belief. One small belief, that had big ramifications. One small step, one giant leap.

It was time to move on. To surrender my territory, and to play with the redefinition of me.