There are certain kinds of stucknesses that are self-reinforcing. What do I mean by this?
Let me ask you: do any of these binds sound remotely familiar?
- Either I have my integrity as an artist/ practitioner and I am poor, or I “sell out” and have enough money to pay the bills.
- Either I stay connected to my family and suffer constantly with their craziness, or I separate from them completely and I don’t belong anymore.
- Either I have a relationship and deal with conflict and heartbreak, or I stay single and suffer loneliness but at least things are sane.
- Either I give up my dreams so someone I care about can have theirs, or I get to have my dreams and they have to sacrifice.
- Etcetera.
The problem with these types of dilemmas is that they are self-reinforcing. Because the options are limited to two (this or that) there’s no room for another option.
Healing and movement forward is almost always about finding the third option, the third way. It is not found by “figuring out” the solution to the current dilemma. It’s found by getting a new map for the territory you are in.
For instance, you’d need a new map for some of these possible “re-solutions”:
- I can have my integrity as an artist and make a secure financial living.
- I can stay connected with my family in a new way, and feel like I belong, but have enough separation to not participate in the craziness.
- There are ways to have relationships that aren’t filled with conflict.
- A good relationship has space and resources for us both to have our dreams.
For this to be something other than trivial advice, and instead a deep lived reality, the meanings have to change deep in our spirit, in our bodies, in our unconscious.
This sometimes happens spontaneously, and this is a great joy. Sometimes it happens when a good friend says something like “I’m wondering if…” and the sentence they finish expands your map in a way you hadn’t imagined.
Other times, it happens because we take ourselves out of the usual routine or context that supports our conventional ways of making meaning in the world, and expose ourselves to “maps” that challenge or same-old, same-old.
That’s why some of us love travel to new cultures so much: struggling with languages we can’t speak, folkways that aren’t ours, and food we don’t recognize, opens our consciousness in ways we welcome, because we’ve been needing an opening, a third way.
This week, I am doing this in a way that is brand-new for me: I am going off the grid. I am going camping in the Eastern Sierras for seven days, where no cell phone can reach me. For some of you, this may not be a big deal–maybe it’s even common. But as I’ve made plans to deal with my business and other obligations for this seven day away from electronic connections, and I was doing the math, I realized it’s been since I first got a cell phone in 2003 that I’ve been away from the grid for anything like this length of time.
I am hoping to find that “new map” (in addition to the new Harrison Trail map I have!). To drop into a bit of unknown, do some re-booting, engage some real surrender into the mercy of the Beloved (as the Sufis call it), and find some third ways for myself.
When have you found a third way–something so surprising, so refreshing, it turned things upside down in ways that were, perhaps, life saving?
In 1998 I spent a month in abroad and didn’t read any news during that time. It was the most enjoyable, calm time and I didn’t miss anything! Enjoy your voyage of discovery. 🙂
Thanks Susie! Have you gotten away since then? My trip was wonderful. It’s incredible how quickly you stop reaching for the phone when it only functions as a time piece…;-)