perhaps you need to shift your thinking, Currie…

Discovery By Taste-Testing Mama Deer

Module 20 - Getting Unstuck - Weekly Prompt

Lisa Wilder says:

What story, or series of thoughts, has been running in your head about why you’re feeling stuck?

It is good for me, BEing prompted in this way. Especially Now, when it seems much has been, through my DOing as well my NOT DOing, resolved regarding most of the stuckness I’d been mired in earlier this year. Just this morning, while tying my shoes to go out with Gracie for Morning Adventure, I looked up and saw the mind-map sort of thingie I’d made in December about how I envisioned 2012.

I was able to acknowledge that Currie. I was able to share with her how far she/we have come since that was written. She was so serious about having to “pay back” all her debt, so unwilling to see things in any other light than the one which highlighted her errors, fouls, and mistakes. I was able to let her know that her seriousness is seen and understood, and yet there is really NO “debt” that she owes. Amazing how something so simple as wrong-thinking can take us so very far afield.

How might you shift those thoughts, or re-write that story, in a way that will serve you rather than keeping you stuck?

A month ago, a few weeks after selling my car, having chosen to BE car-free as the one single thing ONLY I COULD CHOOSE TO DO to reduce my monthly financial obligations, I was speaking with a counsellor at a debt counselling service I’d happened upon last November. She and I have spoken BEfore and she is an excellent listener. She was able to see clearly something I was NOT seeing at all. She said just one thing, perhaps you need to shift your thinking, Currie… which stopped me like running full-out into a brick wall.

Last week I woke from a dream feeling markedly different and new. I couldn’t tell you, even if I tried REALLY HARD, what that dream was about. I only knew it was as though I’d had “psychic surgery” which un-tethered me from my old Life and Self completely. Since then I have this sense of freedom which is definitely NOT BEing or FEELING Stuck.

Break what needs to be done down into the smallest steps possible. Which is your first, or next, step?

When I was so totally focused upon what I owed, what I thought surely I MUST repay, and especially that which I had knowingly “rung up” in the past couple of years, I couldn’t get out of my own way long enough or far enough to DO anything but walk in place. Like walking on a treadmill, I was working up a sweat yet going nowhere, really.

I’ve had so many grand schemes and brilliant notions about HOW to pay off my debt. I think I was operating in another Universe entirely. What I imagine would BE the case were I to live where Gravity does NOT… But, the trouble with that entire mindset and way of living Life is that I was driving ahead with my eyes locked onto the rearview mirror. It took me the first quarter of 2012 to really “see” that, and it required many tiny incremental steps. As I thought I was moving forward I was only standing still, Life damming up BEfore me.

What support do you need to make taking that next step easier?

As I have worked through AYWM, week by week, week in and week out, staying current, I will admit a part of me thought I was just DOing it to “show myself” that indeed I can DO something with consistency and conviction. I thought, I’ll just keep my focus on this and let everything fall into place. But here’s the problem with thinking that: it’s simply insane. It has been the week by week, week in and week out, and staying current that has brought me to the place where my ears, and heart, NOT to mention my MIND, were open to hearing perhaps you need to shift your thinking, Currie…

I have started and let slide many things over the past few years, especially since my move back to the East Coast in 2009. This year, 2012, NOT so much, mayBE even NOT at all. What has made this possible is listening to things, especially the wondrous things I read and reread and embrace in AYWM. One little week at a time I have been “shifting my thinking” and allowing it to BE shifted by the words and wisdom and insights of this amazing program.

How might you reward yourself for having taken that first step?

Rewards are NOT what I used to think they were. Instead, they are the feeling of waking up with my first thought BEing genuine Gladness for the generosity of BEing given a new day. They are the ability to sit quietly with myself when overwhelmed, sad, or simply tired. To BE there, just BE with myself. And most of all they are the little and large encouragements that Letting Go, of EVERYTHING, is just how I roll, Now.