You are nearly always stuck. You may not notice, because you are not rocking the boat, shaking the tree, you are not trying for more, better or different, you are sleepwalking.
When I say “you” I mean, you, me, everyone.
And I am sleepwalking too, but at least some of the time I am conscious of it.
Now… where is this going… right? Do you have to say something, Sophie? yes, I do.
Yesterday was one of those “trouble comes in three’s…” day.
My landlord said something that scared the bejesus out of me… it looks he wants me to move, or else. One of my students got mad at me and quit. And it looked I was on my own getting groceries… the store is far… and the groceries are heavy.
So I saw that regardless of my normally quiet mind, sleep was largely out of question. So I read thill 12:30, and got up at five. And sat down to work.
It, life, my life, looked hopeless. I felt stuck. It felt real.
And then I did something…
One of the steps in the 67 steps is about Mother Nature laughs last, and respecting the seasons.
I needed something to go for a minute… and I counted.
I found myself counting faster to make the thing go faster. I caught myself. I suddenly had an insight: we do this all the time. Try to do something hastily, hoping that the time will go faster.
But time, like seasons, don’t care about your schedule. What takes a minute, will take a minute.
A day is a day whether you are in haste or not.
A two year old, even a five year old business will not provide you with help… a five year old still depends on your to do for it… child or business… no matter how much you want it to do… things take time, and the faster you fall in step with nature, the more harmony will be, the better you’ll feel about life and everything…
But… but… right? When is the money going to come?
So then I asked a question of myself…
What season is my business in?
And then something magical happened.
I saw that I get to say. Seasons of a business, a relationships, your health, your fulfillment are largely up to you to call.
I said: my business is in spring… I am still sawing seeds, and I am still unsure what seeds will come up and what seeds will die in the soil.
And as long as I keep on sawing seeds, I can be quite certain that some seeds will come up, and there will be a summer, where I’ll work on the plants, nurture them, water, them fertilize them… so I can have a harvest.
And I suddenly was filled with hope. Hope feels nice. Really nice.
Now, this is what happened. So what, you could say, and you are right. For most people good things happen as an accident: they cannot do it again.
So here are some principles that were at the root of this getting unstuck incident: from wanting to die to having hope.
Principle 1: the only thing that ever get you unstuck is a shift in perspective.
Shifting the perspective is simply looking at things from a different angle. You shift the angle until you find one that alters what you see.
Principle 2: in every misery the common denominator is you, using some fixed mindset.
here are two:
I… a fixed I… as in “I am this way”
is… it is this way, I am that way, he is that way…
in reality nothing is fixed, not the meaning of things.
Things are maybe where they are (quantum physics even debates that!) but they are not WHAT or HOW they are… that is up to the observer.
This is where you get stuck: when you say I, or is…
It ain’t nothing till you call it… and if you can only see it one way, you are stuck.
In Alice through the Looking Glass (I think) there is a queen who says that most days she believes six impossible things before breakfast. 1
I say that as long as you are stuck with just one interpretation, one vantage point, one meaning, one explanation of a thing, you are stuck in a reality of your own making, and it is probably tight as a prison, vulnerable to input, and miserable.
I used to say: if you can’t give a thousand different explanations, then you are not working hard enough. But I’ll settle for six, like the Queen. Six before breakfast.
Principle 3: the serenity prayer: attend to what you can change, and accept what you can’t. And hopefully you can tell the difference.
I can change my perspective. I can plant seeds. I did. I can find out what are my rights with my landlord. I did. I can call to beg for a ride… I did.
And accept the rest. Accepting means: I don’t worry about it. If I do my preparation, plant seeds, I will reap or I will do it again.
Principle 4: make sure you know what you did. You know what principle, vantage point, or action was what made a difference. And acknowledge the source of the result.
Unless you acknowledge the source, you cannot do it again… you’ll have good accidents and bad accidents, and a life that sucks.
- Six impossible things before breakfast,” is a quote from ‘Alice through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll. It comes from a conversation between Alice and the White Queen starting with a line from the White Queen (Wikiquote, 2015):
“I’m just one hundred and one, five months and a day.”
“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”.
