We all get emotionally or behaviorally stuck from time to time. Try as we might to manage the challenges of our life choices and responsibilities inevitably, we all find ourselves mired in a place that just does not feel good. Inherently we want to grow and develop in what we believe and what we do. When we cannot or are not moving forward, we feel it as being stuck.
Life feels so much better and most fulfilling when we are growing and developing.
When these times of being stuck go on too long, when we cannot figure out what to do to change our uncomfortable situation, we can have thoughts and feelings akin to anger, fear. anxiety, frustration shame or self-loathing; certainly nothing positive. This part of life is painful and seems to negatively impact everything else we do.
How then do we get unstuck? How do we grow beyond what is stifling us and keeping us from growing personally or at work? Mindfulness Definition | What Is Mindfulness (berkeley.edu)
In graduate school while studying human development a college professor of mine, Dr. Robert Atkinson, told me that to continue to grow psychologically and spiritually, each of us goes through continuous cycles that follow the same pattern:
- There is a beginning to our growth,
- then there is a “muddle” (sic)
- and then a resolution to the muddle. Once this “muddle” – the period of feeling stuck – is resolved we can start our next growth cycle.
I love that term “muddle” substituted for middle (of the cycle). It says to me – this is where life is challenging, where our growth and development work gets done. What makes it so difficult is we just do not know how long it will take to reach a resolution.
As a coach I know that growth will happen organically. Change is inevitable.
However, if we know what we are trying to achieve (which is always a good thing to figure out as you start any journey) then a very good approach to managing change in our lives is to commit to the change we want, to persevere with patience recognizing the challenges we’ll face and to live each day applying our whole selves mindfully to the growth we seek.
We do the work. Mindfully going through the muddle leads to transformation. Why Mindfulness is a Necessity For Personal Growth – Mål Paper (malpaper.com)
I find this quote by the Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke (Rainer Maria Rilke – Wikipedia) helpful at times when I am in transition and feeling stuck and frustrated with more questions than answers about what is going in my life.
“Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms, like books written in a foreign tongue. Do not now strive to uncover answers: they cannot be given you because you have not been able to live them. And what matters is to live everything. Live the questions for now. Perhaps then you will gradually, without noticing it, live your way into the answer, one (distant) day in the future.”
- Begin a transformation (change)
- Muddle through, identifying and living the questions
- Achieve a resolution
Living through the muddle is the hard part. What would your life be like if you chose to live the questions that arise, and accept the gradual emergence into the answers?
If I can help, give me a call.
Be present. Be well.
