When Things Are Hard and There Seems To Be No Way Forward

 

Sometimes things are just hard.  Uncertainty can be hard, I wrote about that last time. But sometimes certainty can, too.  

 

Like when my client, I’ll call her Kayla, learned that her 5 year-old daughter will be in a cast from her waist to her toes for at least six months, at home.  She felt like she should be celebrating that there are corrections that will allow her baby to walk and run like the other kids someday.  But there was no getting around the six months of immobility for her active child, or the fact of having to care for her at home, 24-7.

 

Or when Vero called to tell me she’s in the thick of it with her teenage children and she feels like she’s losing her grip on herself. She says things that are hurtful, that she should keep to herself, that she regrets once the argument is over.  When it’s over, she promises herself she’ll do better next time, but she just can’t seem to do it. The fights feel constant and she never fully recovers enough.

 

There are many versions of that kind of hard, where there’s no getting around what’s there, around the reality of what awaits us.  When things are hard, the path to a better place doesn’t seem to exist, and we just have to be there, in the hard of it. 

 

ALLOWING WHAT IS, WHEN THINGS ARE HARD

It’s natural to feel resistance, to want to fix things and, when we can’t, to want to distract ourselves.  But of course, that doesn’t really work. Things are still hard.  And, in fact, we are now expending extra energy to push the feelings away or resist reality.

 

Allowing What Is takes skill.  Fortunately, it’s skill that we can cultivate.

 

It means remembering that our feelings and our thoughts about What Is are energies that can move through us or stick. They can congeal into heaviness or transform to higher frequencies. 

 

It means taking time to let ourselves have our feelings and let them flow through us, without pushing anything away.

 

And sharpening our discernment so that we don’t unwittingly get hooked on the thoughts that surround those feelings. So we don’t start telling ourselves stories about who is to blame or whether we deserve what is happening or anything else. 

 

Allowing What Is is a way to be gentle and generous with ourselves.

LOVING THE HURT PARTS

When we allow What Is, when we sit with our feelings, we can begin to discover the aspects of us that are hurting.

 

I have found a young girl, around five, curled around her knees in the cave of my heart, shivering and scared, wondering who can save her. And Kayla, whose daughter is in a cast, has a tiny, wizened soccer mom inside, who keeps shaking her fists at the sky because things aren’t supposed to be this way.

 

When things are hard and we address those hurting parts with gentleness and kindness, and acknowledge their overwhelm, their hurt and anger, their fear, some of the stuck energy can be freed to move through us again.  It’s not that suddenly everything is resolved.  Just that there is movement within us, that the hurt parts are suddenly not the only ones on stage.

 

Now the wise parts, the strong parts, the ones that we didn’t know were there, the ones that are developing within us to help us with this particular juncture, the parts that we need to find a way forward can step up and make themselves known to us.  Their energy can begin to expand.

NOW YOU

Whether you are in a hard place to day, or not, I invite you to take a moment in the space of intentionality that these lines and our attention creates right now, and consciously allow What Is. 

 

Notice what you are feeling, what the energies that are moving through your body and your energy field are like.  Notice what thoughts are coming to you. Let it all move, naturally, as you observe without attachment.

 

And if there is hurt, if it is hard, then let your intuition tell you what parts are hurting. You may imagine a human figure as I described above, but you may also simply feel a part of your body more acutely, or have an image or scent arise.

 

Whatever it is, acknowledge and affirm it. Address the fear or hurt there, with words, humming a tune, or whatever comes up for you. If it’s a part of your body, you can put your hand there (and if you can, offer it Reiki).  There’s no wrong way to do this, offering your attention is already a gift.

 

Sit with this until you feel complete and notice again the energies, your thoughts and feelings.  Notice, too, that parts that are stepping up, and welcome them.

 

You know that I love to hear what you make of my suggestions as well as what’s going on in your life, so please comment, below, or get in touch if you are so inclined.

 

And if you are in the hard place right now, I have two spots open for coaching, so schedule a time to talk, with no commitment, and we’ll talk about how I can help!

When Things Are Hard, With No Way Forward
Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Tagged on: