Some days you feel on top of the world.
Other days you feel utterly stuck.
Today I woke up in a strange mood. Weepy, disinterested. I did my morning meditations and my yoga, got my cup of tea and sat down at my laptop – hoping to see some long-awaited emails. I was sure that they would have arrived in the night and they would jolt me out of this state of strange limbo I found myself in. But no… no emails I was hoping to see, only emails that did not make me happy to see. A meeting got postponed – not by too long, but enough to make me question this strange morning. Why is everything feeling so stuck? I’ve been waiting so patiently, trusting the timing, watering the seeds… but am I doing something to block the arrival? What is going on here? Why do we get into these weedy patches where it feels so icky and uncomfortable and it looks like, despite our best efforts, nothing is happening?
I remembered that I have been in this place many times before. I feel in to the fact that it feels like something based in fear – definitely not connection and love – this ick. I wonder what I should be doing about this – what will shift it into something that feels better.
When I remember being here before, I also remember that when I’ve found myself here in the past, it had just-about-always turned out to be a liminal space. It’s the feeling of the old being gone but the new not having arrived yet. The icky feeling is the tension between what has passed and what is coming, and it feels horrible. Terribly uncomfortable, this in-between feeling. The mind hates the uncertainty of not knowing what is happening, the body feels the discomfort of the tension and we convince ourselves that there must be something wrong. Gotta do something to fix this. But what will fix this? Nobody knows! And it feels even worse.
The thing to remember here is, well a few things to remember here, is that how icky this feels, is totally normal. And that this will pass. And the best thing to do now, is to rest the mind and the body. Because when this passes, and it will, soon, things will kick off again and you are going to need your strength.
Remember that everything is in cycle. Last week or last month, when you were flying high and were operating in top gear, colourful and shiny – this is now the bottom of that same sine curve. The yin of rest to that yang of activity.
I am reminded of a beautiful story in Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes’s book Women Who Run With The Wolves. It’s about being in this weird in-between space, feeling unfocused and out of sorts. In a nutshell, the story goes like this:
There is a very old man, and ancient man, heis lost in a stormy, scary and dark forest. He is soooo exhausted and hungry, he has nothing left in him. Then he sees a little house in-between the trees, with the friendliest warm yellow light above the door. He drags himself, with his very last remaining strength, to the door, and utterly fatigued, falls through it. The old woman that lives there, gathers him up and brings him inside to the wonderful roaring fire. She cradles him to her like a child and gently rocks him and sings to him, all through the night. As she rocks him, he becomes younger and younger until shortly before he dawn, he is a beautiful young man with golden hair. She continues rocking him and singing to him, until he is a small baby. She plucks three of his golden hairs from his head and throws them to the ground, where they make a lovely, ringing sound. Just before the sun rises, the baby leaps from her lap, runs out the door, flies into the sky and becomes the rising sun.
My apologies to the author for paraphrasing this (much longer) story in such a brutal way. I highly recommend reading the full tale in the book. The meaning of this story is this, though:
We all get fatigued, our creative juices dry up, our energy runs out – we become the old man with nothing left in him. The way to regain our energy and focus, is to rest and replenish ourselves with kindness and love – the old lady by the fire rocking the old man as if he was her own child. When the night passes, the old man has turned into a baby – energy has been restored, the cycle is on the up again, the creative juices are flowing. The three hairs plucked from the baby’s head represent culling old ideas that are no longer relevant so we can move ahead with unencumbered vitality.
I love this story because it reminds me that:
- These things are in cycle. The sine curve of feeling on top of the world, everything going right, wonderful things coming my way, being full of ideas and motivation and energy… and then the opposite pole of that… feeling spent, sad, unmotivated, directionless
- The “fix” is so simple – just rest and feed yourself. We don’t have to run around or do anything crazy to fix the situation… just wait it out. It’s going to turn itself around again in no time. Just be kind to yourself, love yourself, recognise that this is in cycle, soothe yourself in whatever kind ways feel appropriate… and in a short time, whaddayouknow…
- It’s OK to let some of your ideas go… to adjust your direction… to let the new energy alter you. You don’t have to keep beating the same rhythm on your drum if that doesn’t feel right.
So if you are feeling stuck, like you are waiting but nothing is happening… keep your course! Keep being kind to yourself. This shall pass soon.
To help alleviate the heaviness of this, fall back on the things we know that work to move sluggish energy in the mind and the body:
Write your way through it.
Make art through it.
Dance yourself through it.
Be kind with yourself.
Be ever so gentle with yourself. And others.
Keep reminding yourself that this too shall pass – and welcome what is coming with grace and ease.
