How do you feel about your stuck-ness? Your blocks?

Are you longing for your freedom, cursing the impedance to forward motion?

Perhaps a shift in perspective will offer an unexpected solution.

Stuck-ness is a pattern I have been lovingly – and not so lovingly – deconstructing since I became aware that my birth trauma had a tremendous negative impact on my being.

I have used all manner of methods to “bust through” the blocks, “wipe out” the negative programming, “erase” that pattern, “delete” that crystallized wrong thinking, or correct some wrong and reframe it into what appears right.

While I have had some success and gleaned much insight, at times I still struggle with a feeling of being stuck and unable to move forward in my life.

Today, I came to a favorite park for exercise. I was keeping a promise I made to myself to move the energy in my body that felt stagnant, and to shimmy through the resistance I have to leaving my home when it’s cold and grey outside.

Toward the end of my walk, I came to sit by a pond that is often dotted with colorful water fowl, and waves expanding out in concentric rings from the mouths of fish gaping at the surface. But this time, there would be no fish or fowl.

I looked out over a scene unnervingly quiet, surreal. The pond looked as if it had been literally frozen in time.

Waves caused by the breeze skimming across the surface had frozen in place, and gold and crimson leaves that would normally drift and bob on the currents now stood eerily still.

The delicate shell of ice that had formed over the pond was so thin as to be clear as glass, and only the stillness of it gave indication that it was something other than fluid water.

I sat on a nearby bench and was overcome by the rare beauty of this pause, a suspension of animation so complete that it seemed movement would never again come to this place.

In that moment I asked myself; if I could admire the beauty in this stillness, why could I not appreciate my own?

I then made the decision to accept my stuckness as a part of the dance of my life. In meditation, I went back to speak with tiny infant me, to let her know that there was nothing wrong with her, or the way she felt. To listen to her and whatever she had to share with me, to give her what she needed.

I cradled her and told her that I loved her no matter how stuck she was, or how she felt. And, that I was very sorry if I ever made her feel like she ruined my life before it even began.

Tearfully, I watched as she transformed in my arms into various forms, and danced out over the water, exploring each one. Some part of her, me, had been set free.

If I cannot extend my compassion to tiny infant me, if I cannot love a baby in her stuckness rather than judging her as broken and the source of my life problems, then my compassion is incomplete.

Seeking to wipe out or delete a part of my life story is akin to amputating a limb, and that doesn’t sound like true self love to me.

I left the park and the infinite stillness of that pond a different woman, one who can better appreciate the parts of her story she once longed to delete.

I wonder what would change if you chose to embrace your “stuckness” as a beautiful pause in the dance of your life?

Carisa