top of page
Search

On Stuckness, part 2

Writer's picture: EmilyEmily

Part 2: 5 Ways to Be Curious & 2 Ways to Engage with Change


Don’t let that horse

eat that violin

cried Chagall’s mother.

But he

kept right on

painting

And became famous.

Don’t Let That Horse, Lawrence Ferlinghetti


Welcome, dear reader –


This is the second part of On Stuckness. If you missed part one, you can read it here.


Thank you to everyone who wrote me about their own stuckness, from being stuck in old patterns and stagnant relationships to being stuck in not being able to start something new.


In part one, I was talking about how stuckness keeps us blind, unable to even see the space open to us, the play in motion.


This time I want to offer some ways to question our stuckness. Being curious helps us to see what keeps us stuck and how we might re-frame our thinking.


Five Questions to Ask Yourself When You’re Stuck

1) What are the parts and people in the mechanisms of stuckness?

Take a look at all the factors surrounding what you can’t do. Who and what are involved? Where is there space to try something different?


2) What did you gain from being stuck?

Stuckness can be a way of protecting ourselves, of giving ourselves something we needed.


What needs are still being unmet? How can you get those met in another way?


4) What do you fear will happen, if you change?

There’s the top layer of fear – the consequences of changing – and the deeper layer – what we fear about our own selves. You’re stuck doing all the cleaning in your family? What do you fear about changing that? That your house will be messy? That you will be seen as a bad person, unable to keep a clean house, unable to take care of your family?


Our top layer of fear is often something we can negotiate with. It’s the deeper layer – our fear of being judged – that can keep us stuck for far too long.


5) What are you willing to give up?

Moving out of stuckness requires us to give up some comfort, some ideas we held about ourselves. It probably will be uncomfortable to return to the gym. The conversation with your partner will be awkward at first. The house will be messy. Maybe you can’t help out as much as you would like.


Change is awkward. It feels uncomfortable, as if we’re not in our own skin. We have to re-negotiate with who we thought we were.


Two Ways to Engage Change


1) Play The Violin

Pretend.

Who do you know that isn’t stuck in the ways you are? What do they do?

Step into their shoes. Play their violin.

Play the violin. You are the person who goes to the gym, who talks honestly with their partner, who sets appropriate boundaries, who isn’t late to work, who…


2) Eat That Violin

Do the unexpected. Break your own character. Perhaps the stuckness of your life can’t be resolved with tweaks, with setting the gym shoes at the front door, with creating weekly family meetings.

Perhaps your stuckness needs to be overthrown, consumed, rioted against by your very soul. Eat that violin.

Ferlinghetti’s poem ends with -- And there were no strings/attached.

How might you shatter your own expectations?



May we all be curious about where we are stuck.

May we find the play in our stuckness and the playfulness in our changing.


I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Emily


* Stuck getting to the gym? Think about the gym’s location, the people at the gym, the clothing you wear, the time of day (and so forth).

(A shout out here to my beloved gym – ATC!)

Feeling you can’t talk honestly with your boss/partner/friend? Think about the language you each use, the cultural expectations, the physical spaces in which you communicate, the body language you use, if you’re clear on what you want to say…


** Perhaps not going to the gym started because it felt like giving yourself time to rest. And maybe you still need that rest – how can you get it in a way that feels like movement and openness rather than stuckness?

Perhaps you avoided a difficult conversation with your partner because you needed to feel connected? But now you’re stuck in a pattern of avoidance. How could the need to be connected be met in other ways? How could you and your partner work together to create a space in which challenging conversations created more connection?


Post Script I mourned my father’s death by eating Lay’s potato chips. The salt and fat felt elemental, the way grief is elemental. I kept eating them long after the connection of tears and salt was lost.

As I work to get out of this pattern, I think about all the mechanisms involved, from the ease of stopping at Walgreens to the stories I tell myself about not eating dinner when I’m eating potato chips. I recognize the fears I have of being judged that I’m not “over” my grief. I realize I need to eat that violin –give up any notions of what my grief looks like – and embark on the paintings I’ve wanted to do as a form of mourning.


  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn

© 2023 Thresholds Coaching. Proudly created with Wix.com

All original artwork  created and owned by Emily Miller Mlčák.

bottom of page