When you experience a setback in life, or disappointment, or heartbreak, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. When our hearts are heavy, it’s hard to move on.
When a car gets stuck in the mud, our instinct is to accelerate in a desperate attempt to set ourselves free. These attempts are futile. Mud flies everywhere, the car sinks deeper into the mud, and we end up with a bigger mess than we had to begin with.
We all get stuck from time to time. Sometimes we do it to ourselves, sometimes someone else does something to cause it, and sometimes circumstances conspire against us. And sometimes we get stuck because stuck is exactly where we need to be in order to pause and reflect on life.
The question is what to do when we find ourselves stuck. Albert Einstein observed, “We cannot solve problems by using the same thinking we used when we created them.”
We need a new level of consciousness to get unstuck. It’s one of the hardest things to attain in life. We strive for knowledge and education, but beyond these await wisdom and consciousness. The hardest thing to do in this life is to make the unconscious conscious.
From the ground floor of any of the buildings that surround Central Park it is hard to distinguish it from any other park. Go up to the tenth floor and you begin to see its scope and scale. It looks almost completely different from that vantage point. Go to the twenty-first floor and again it looks different. But it isn’t. It hasn’t changed, your awareness has changed. Go to the thirty-fifth floor and you will have an even greater appreciation for this spectacular greenspace in the midst of the most densely populated urban area in the United States. Fly in a helicopter over the park and you will gain new insights again.
What’s going to help you get unstuck? What’s going to give you a new perspective and raise your consciousness? Reading. Long walks. New friends. Old friends. Prayer. Reflection. Meditation.
What will prevent you from getting unstuck? One thing above all else: shame. Beware shame. Shame allows us to stay stuck. Enduring shame is like falling in love with being stuck.
It’s okay to feel stuck. It’s okay to be stuck. Just remember that you were not created to be stuck, you were created to grow. Rest a little, take some naps, cry a little, or a lot, but then listen to life pulsing through your body. You will hear that it is time, once again, to walk, to sing, to laugh, to dance, to live.
Matthew Kelly
From Life is Messy
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