As we walk along the pathway of our lives, we encounter many things and on a given day we don’t know whether we will happen upon opportunity, tragedy or something in between. This human journey is fraught with uncertainty. …and human beings don’t like uncertainty! What a conundrum! Except: of course, that we only develop and grow when these unexpected challenges come our way and so this new situation may not be completely bad news. Even good news requires an amount of ingenuity and adjustment to integrate into our lives.
Such is the stuff of living with stressors. For the most part, we deal with these mini-crises: traffic jam, phone out of battery power, tension with a co-worker, an unexpected expense, disappointment, with varying levels of competence. Often we can draw on past experiences when we’ve dealt with something similar or there is someone we can call to help or at least to help make a decision. Sometimes, we are in new territory, but the stakes are not high and other than inconvenience or unpleasant feelings, we emerge from these times intact and perhaps a bit wiser, adding to our repertoire of “things I can deal with”. That platitude most of us don’t want to hear: “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
Once in a while there is more than just a minor setback and we find ourselves presented with an inescapable situation that we are going to have to go through. Depending on the responsibilities we are saddled with or the risk involved or the absence of any clear solution, we may find ourselves wading into unfamiliar turf where we are unsure of the way forward. There is no quick fix, no obvious formula to a favourable outcome.
It’s as if we’d been contentedly bopping along with relative ease and our path suddenly veers directly into an unavoidable sloppy, stinky, bog-like swamp! No possibility of going around it or over it! No option but to gingerly put one foot in front of the other and venture in. With no clear guidance, we nevertheless have to continue walking or stay stuck in this vile place and let ourselves be victims of happenstance. What are we to do?
Most of the people we deem as heroes have at one time or another faced this type of dilemma. These are the stories that line our history books with our obvious advantage of hindsight to tell us what decisions were sound and which were not. Most of us will not face the kind of gravity someone like Mahatma Ghandi or Nelson Mandela had to. However, most of us, will, in our lifetime have to deal with complications for which we have no sense of what action to take. Or the times of loss where there is simply no action out of where we find ourselves. This is where we as human beings are in the greatest danger of going against ourselves. We falsely decide this predicament is our own fault and/or everything in our life is a big mess and/or this dreadful circumstance is permanent and we are fated to live in this state forever.
As we feel the very ground beneath our feet shift and heave on its own volition, we have lost our internal compass – or perhaps we dropped it and it is now synonymous with the swamp that we find ourselves in. – Even more reason to blame ourselves. The temptation to give up is apparent and not much else! I have sat with many in these kinds of terrible plights and heard the railings of their broken heart and their despair! My heart has wept for the very real horror they are facing and I too have felt the helplessness and seeming futility of their cross to bear.
But as I watch with deep admiration for the courageous soul in front of me, somehow, they begin the live the thousand mile journey, one step at a time. Something deeply mysterious lies at the core of the human spirit that will not give up even as this weary mortal cries out, “I can’t do this!” At my urging and support, I reassure them, this is not the time to evaluate. This is not the time for giving up. This is the time to surrender to what is and to find the gentle words of encouragement for the frightened part of them and seek only for the strength for this present moment. I watch this neonate put one brave foot in front of the other. Each day, muddling through without the perks of knowing what lies ahead, without the hope of any escape or rescue. But life itself creates deliverance because of the ever changing landscape we live, even though we cursed this same uncertainty on a different day! It is said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes! As long as there is life, there is a way. To find self-confidence, not to do the right or even best thing but to believe in our ability to get through whatever lies ahead, despite how terrifying or dangerous. To be able to live into the next morass with the powerful inner vitality we have discovered.
It is only when the sky begins to clear and we begin to feel more solid ground beneath us that we can look back on this wasteland we have sloshed through, that we come to realize the richness and the virility hidden within it’s dark shadows. This is the secret strength of going through painful ordeals. This is the stuff of freedom. This is the gem this tribulation has brought to you. Once we have experienced what the swamp has to teach us, nothing this world has to throw at us will ever truly take us out!
Wishing you safe passage through whatever challenge you may be facing. If you would like to make an appointment with me, I’d be happy to accompany you through this. Go over to the contacts page and leave me an email or leave me a message on my phone. I’ll respond as quickly as I am able.
Warmly,
JeriLynne
Such is the stuff of living with stressors. For the most part, we deal with these mini-crises: traffic jam, phone out of battery power, tension with a co-worker, an unexpected expense, disappointment, with varying levels of competence. Often we can draw on past experiences when we’ve dealt with something similar or there is someone we can call to help or at least to help make a decision. Sometimes, we are in new territory, but the stakes are not high and other than inconvenience or unpleasant feelings, we emerge from these times intact and perhaps a bit wiser, adding to our repertoire of “things I can deal with”. That platitude most of us don’t want to hear: “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
Once in a while there is more than just a minor setback and we find ourselves presented with an inescapable situation that we are going to have to go through. Depending on the responsibilities we are saddled with or the risk involved or the absence of any clear solution, we may find ourselves wading into unfamiliar turf where we are unsure of the way forward. There is no quick fix, no obvious formula to a favourable outcome.
It’s as if we’d been contentedly bopping along with relative ease and our path suddenly veers directly into an unavoidable sloppy, stinky, bog-like swamp! No possibility of going around it or over it! No option but to gingerly put one foot in front of the other and venture in. With no clear guidance, we nevertheless have to continue walking or stay stuck in this vile place and let ourselves be victims of happenstance. What are we to do?
Most of the people we deem as heroes have at one time or another faced this type of dilemma. These are the stories that line our history books with our obvious advantage of hindsight to tell us what decisions were sound and which were not. Most of us will not face the kind of gravity someone like Mahatma Ghandi or Nelson Mandela had to. However, most of us, will, in our lifetime have to deal with complications for which we have no sense of what action to take. Or the times of loss where there is simply no action out of where we find ourselves. This is where we as human beings are in the greatest danger of going against ourselves. We falsely decide this predicament is our own fault and/or everything in our life is a big mess and/or this dreadful circumstance is permanent and we are fated to live in this state forever.
As we feel the very ground beneath our feet shift and heave on its own volition, we have lost our internal compass – or perhaps we dropped it and it is now synonymous with the swamp that we find ourselves in. – Even more reason to blame ourselves. The temptation to give up is apparent and not much else! I have sat with many in these kinds of terrible plights and heard the railings of their broken heart and their despair! My heart has wept for the very real horror they are facing and I too have felt the helplessness and seeming futility of their cross to bear.
But as I watch with deep admiration for the courageous soul in front of me, somehow, they begin the live the thousand mile journey, one step at a time. Something deeply mysterious lies at the core of the human spirit that will not give up even as this weary mortal cries out, “I can’t do this!” At my urging and support, I reassure them, this is not the time to evaluate. This is not the time for giving up. This is the time to surrender to what is and to find the gentle words of encouragement for the frightened part of them and seek only for the strength for this present moment. I watch this neonate put one brave foot in front of the other. Each day, muddling through without the perks of knowing what lies ahead, without the hope of any escape or rescue. But life itself creates deliverance because of the ever changing landscape we live, even though we cursed this same uncertainty on a different day! It is said there were only two things certain in life: death and taxes! As long as there is life, there is a way. To find self-confidence, not to do the right or even best thing but to believe in our ability to get through whatever lies ahead, despite how terrifying or dangerous. To be able to live into the next morass with the powerful inner vitality we have discovered.
It is only when the sky begins to clear and we begin to feel more solid ground beneath us that we can look back on this wasteland we have sloshed through, that we come to realize the richness and the virility hidden within it’s dark shadows. This is the secret strength of going through painful ordeals. This is the stuff of freedom. This is the gem this tribulation has brought to you. Once we have experienced what the swamp has to teach us, nothing this world has to throw at us will ever truly take us out!
Wishing you safe passage through whatever challenge you may be facing. If you would like to make an appointment with me, I’d be happy to accompany you through this. Go over to the contacts page and leave me an email or leave me a message on my phone. I’ll respond as quickly as I am able.
Warmly,
JeriLynne
“To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.”
― Barbara Hurd, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination
― Barbara Hurd, Stirring the Mud: On Swamps, Bogs, and Human Imagination