When things aren’t working out they way you want them to and you’ve tried everything to make them work, what do you do? How do you get things to change? How do you mobilize something that has become a perpetual stalemate?
Situations like this may linger for not just months, but years. You keep pulling yourself back up, try again, fall down once more, renew your courage and attitude and go at it again. “Maybe this will be the time!” But it doesn’t happen. So you repeat the cycle. Trying again. And again. And again.
…sigh of frustration…
“Why aren’t things working?”, you may wonder. You’ve left no stone unturned and given it your best effort. You’ve looked at possible limiting beliefs that might be interfering and work on releasing them, yet it continues.
Deep frustration creeps in, maybe eventually to be followed by depression, you wonder why you should bother anymore. You begin to spiral downward as the oh-so-familiar negative self talk you learned in childhood gains momentum, becoming louder until eventually it’s shouting at you.
Most of us are incredibly good at doing and “efforting.” We live in a world that extols a masculine approach of setting goals, making plans, and diligently working to achieve them. While this approach is useful in a number of situations, sometimes, it simply won’t work. In fact, sometimes it will work against you or just plain get in the way.
The other side of this coin is the yin, or feminine energy. Its energy is fluid, receptive and allowing. It moves and changes like the tides of the ocean.
Let me put it this way: How good are you at receiving? At letting go and allowing things to unfold organically? Are you comfortable with asking for and receiving help when you need it? Are you patient when you don’t get the result you want right away, or do you immediately start planning your next countermove?
Does the very mention of these things bring up resistance, trigger strong feelings, and make you want to recoil?
I wouldn’t blame you if they did.
Some more questions… What are your belief systems about how to get what you want and how to break through obstacles that arise? Do you believe that everything is available to you with ease and grace? Or do you feel like it has to be hard, and if it’s easy, you have somehow been lazy and haven’t proved yourself enough and earned it?
So many of us are really good at being hard on ourselves and even punishing ourselves. We slip into self-criticism easily. “I failed AGAIN! It must be that I’m trying hard enough. I’m so embarrassed and ashamed!” may be our thought response.
We want to be in control, to take the situation by the horns and with our sheer willpower and determination, we will get through. The truth is, if you do this long enough, eventually, you will.
But…
Is this the best approach? Not always.
Let’s be honest. Sometimes, situations demand that we sharpen our focus and try harder. And sometimes, this is the right answer. There can come a time, however, when this will work against us. The trick is to be able to discern what energy is needed and use it accordingly.
Patience and trust implies being in a role of receivership. Not doing but simply, allowing it to come to us when it’s time, when we’ve finally gotten out of the way and put our agendas, supposed to’s and shoulds aside.
Receiving is underrated, under-appreciated and gets a bad rap. There’s tremendous power in receiving. Receiving requires vulnerability, listening, flexibility and being open. None of these qualities are easy, all of them require strength, and none of them show weakness, though the world would say otherwise.
Receiving is where the magic happens. It’s where the synchronicities occur and things just work out without trying. It’s the flow state where things are easy, enjoyable and spontaneous. There’s no control, no grasping, no longing for a different feeling or a different experience. Only complete and total immersion in the present moment.
The moment we notice how well things are going we immediately come out of that state and go back into the past. Conversely, longing to get back into that flow guarantees that our focus is on the future. We’re back in our heads and full of thoughts and commentary. Opinions, reflections and feelings dart back and forth.
This is a practice that for many of us, is in opposition to what we learned growing up and what is reinforced by our culture. Letting go of control, the power of surrender, and trusting that you are being guided even when you think you’ve been abandoned is not easy stuff.
When our efforting doesn’t pay off, sometimes it’s because there are other parts of us that need nurturing. We’re damn good at doing, but we need to strengthen our ability to receive, and maybe that’s what the perpetual roadblocks have been trying to steer us towards all along.
They’re saying, “Hey, it’s ok. I’ve got you. You can relax a bit. Let me pick up some of the slack.”
Sometimes we need to take our minds off our frustrations, change our energy and tend to other parts of ourselves. To allow ourselves to have fun, to enjoy a hobby or to lose ourselves in the moment doing something that does not have a goal or a point.
Yep. You read that right. Without there being a point.
The relationship between effort and non-effort is a dance. It is push and pull, give and receive, like the relationship between the moon and the ocean.
When one is out of alignment the results are obvious. They are seen and felt. If we’re doing too much we may continually come up against obstacles. If we’re being too passive we might be stuck in a rut, riddled with indecision or lack motivation.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be so hard all the time. If we are good at doing, maybe we can become better at being and non-efforting. At nurturing the parts of ourselves that have been neglected.
Instead of doing more and working harder, maybe that focus needs to go towards the very thing that goes against your normal character. You’ve already flexed your “doing” muscles. Now it’s time to let go. Now it’s time to tend to other areas that need it.