The rock is real. The hard place is optional.
Have you ever been stuck between a rock and a hard place, in the middle of two opposing and equally powerful forces that make even the smallest shift seem impossible? You know that riptide created when your call to live big crashes into your self-limiting fears and beliefs? I’ve been having the darndest time navigating these two currents as I launch my new business. There is a habitual somatic bracing that happens inside of me when people engage me to do the work I love and am good at because I never learned to totally trust my process. After a long rumble, I’m starting to make some headway and I hope sharing my story might help you on your journey.
Truth is, I’m messy. I’ve been messy my entire life. Not with cupboards and house cleaning, but the type of messy that feels dangerous and provocative to people who enjoy order, emotional tidiness and linear thinking. The type of messy that people want to tame or shame out of those of us who don’t color in the lines and who push too hard on the crayons. You know the ones who spontaneously name the elephant in the room, dance with “too” much abandon at the event, ask “how you doing for reals” after your unconvincing first response; the inconvenient bulls in the carefully constructed china shop of social norms.
I feel most at ease in the wilderness - craggy mountain peaks, fields of wildflowers, raging rivers, unpredictable weather - and in thrift stores, where I find the chaos comforting and the score of a treasure amidst the trash, thrilling. When things are too orderly, clinical, muted or scripted I feel nervous and unsure, because it doesn’t match my internal experience.
Growing up in a family system that valued emotional distance, order and control, I internalized the message that messy, wild and emergent was something to feel ashamed of, embarrassed by. It’s quite a conundrum when your sense of belonging requires an abandonment of your essence; part of your special sauce. It creates an insidious bind, an impossible choice for a young heart, between aligning with the people on whom you depend for survival or maintaining connection with one’s self and the source of her deepest power and presence.
Looking back, I made a choice that seemed reasonable at the time, but ended up costing me my freedom: hold on to myself AND hold on to the primary connection by internalizing the message that my intuitive, raw, non- linear way somehow makes me wrong and unworthy. I kept the wild AND the wild tamer. Anytime I dropped a ball or sensed someone’s discomfort or anxiety I got myself back in line with some good old fashioned shame, blame, personalization or comparison. “I am too messy.” “I’m not sophisticated enough.” “I’m not cut out for this because I’m not __ enough.” And my favorite “I got lucky this time.” You’d think after 54 years of “getting lucky” I’d catch on.
This polarized and conflicted place inside of me has been like a two ton rock in my backpack, weighing me down as I endeavor to bag majestic and metaphorical peaks. Each river trip, every new request for facilitation, training or coaching, no matter how passionate or excited I might be about the topic, the group, the location or the paycheck, automatically activates a fear alarm and resistance. Not the fear that motivates, that says “hey, let’s harness our best self and crush this,” rather, the kind that snakes its way down into your core, creating dread and doubt and robbing you of the joy and delight before you even get started. Once in front of a room or in the back of a boat or across from a client, the magic takes over and I’m back in the moment, trusting my instincts and flowing with what emerges.
I can’t hold the tension in the same way anymore. It’s not prudent or sustainable to try to make a living doing what I was put on earth to do while simultaneously resisting and shaming the person and process that sources the spark. Something’s gotta give as I start my own consulting and coaching business to help people see and navigate their own internal complexity in a way that serves them and others.
The rock is real. I’m learning to embrace the rock. I have a wild, untamed and intuitive essence and process. Sometimes it means I “step in it” and cut to the quick when more grace is appropriate, run late because I stopped to connect with someone on the way to the thing, ask the hard questions instead of sticking to the agenda, or am overly enthusiastic when the memo calls for playing it cool. Often it helps me guide people to deep insights, transformational shifts, new ways of seeing and holding themselves, their problems and others. This irreverent and spontaneous way of being creates space for the unscripted, unpredictable moments that help unlock the wisdom, wonder and potential in those willing to brave the mess and chaos of their own and other’s humanness.
The hard place is optional. The hard place is how we view our rock. It’s a set of unconscious beliefs and messages I am starting to finally see and face down, as the white water of my mind recedes. Once the dark and scary is made visible it’s much easier to question and rumble with, to test out alternative beliefs and narratives, to have some choice. In rafting, rocks are awesome because you can pivot off of them in a jam or pull into their eddy in a tricky rapid to catch your breath. No rocks? No rapids! And what fun would river rafting be without those? Plus, rocks are beautiful, sturdy and elemental.
What are your rocks? What are the messages you have internalized that make you doubt your gifts? Do you hold conflicting messages about how you do that thing only you can do, and is that narrative serving you? If you are caught between a rock and a hard place, maybe it’s time to shift your perspective!
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