In order to understand this post, here’s the poem that will remind you of the flow of life.
We all have moments in life when we feel wedged in a deep rut flanked by speed bumps on all sides. We feel like ships adrift at sea with no port of destination. For some, those moments are a matter of days. For others, they’re a matter of years, even an entire lifetime. With that lack of direction, we feel lost and uncertain.
I remember when I was around 5 years old I strayed from my mother in a busy open-air market. When I realized she wasn’t by my side, I panicked. Will I ever see her again? Who can help me? What do I do? I sat on the floor and cried, hoping for a miracle. I felt stuck, paralyzed. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. As an adult, I’ve had at least two points in my life when I felt like I was treading water with no shore in sight. First, when Erik died, I didn’t know how to believe he still existed somewhere. I was raised by atheists and, although I was more of an agnostic, my belief system about life after death was one big fat vacuum. Thankfully what to me became indisputable proof pulled me to shore. The second point in my life when I felt stuck was also after Erik’s death. I was so deep in that pit of grief that sunlight eluded me. The rawness subsided over time, but the grief remained strong, and I remained broken. Erik has also helped me move toward shore, but I still struggle with moving past the grief to reach a new normal. Still, I’m a work in progress.
Me: Erik, people often feel stuck in life. They have this loss of direction. I’ve had several of those times.
Erik: You’ve had times when you were stuck in trying to change your belief system, like going from being skeptical about whether there was life after death to becoming a believer.
Me: Another way I’ve been stuck is in trying to find peace and joy. I don’t know what they are, and I don’t know how to look for it. I know they’re out there but…
Erik: Damn good example!
Me: I know! That just came out of my you-know-what!
Erik laughs.
Me: And, of course, I’ve been stuck in grief over the loss of the physical you. God, I’ve been treading water in so many ways always trying to keep from drowning.
I feel exhausted at the thought but hopeful that the insight he gives me in this book will be the swimming lessons I need to keep my head out of the water so I can swim to shore.
Me: I know it seems pretty obvious, but how does feeling stuck relate to uncertainty?
Erik: Yeah, I’m going to be Captain Obvious here. You feel stuck because you’re uncertain about where the fuck you’re going.
I giggle.
Me: What’s the spiritual basis for feeling stuck?
Erik: When you feel uncomfortable, trapped, lost, wingless—
Erik shows this awful image of a bird with its wings ripped off, comparing it to a guy with his arms ripped off. Gross.
Erik: I think being stuck is a opportune time for change. When you feel like you‘re stuck in an elevator between floors, it’s your time to choose another floor or even create a new one. You’re not going to expand your consciousness and your belief system without that “a-ha moment,” and great a-ha moments come after struggle and entrapment. It doesn’t have to be a physical entrapment. It can be mentally or emotionally, too. For those of you who are sensitive enough to understand the subtleties, you can also be entrapped on a spiritual level.
Me: Yeah, like I was.
Erik: The greater reason for someone to get stuck is to set the stage for change. People might label it in different ways. “It helped me find my courage.” “It helped me set a boundary.” “It helped me get stronger.” “It helped me find God.” Whatever the help is, that’s part of the story, but the spiritual agreement you made was to be caged this way and sent off to sea with no paddle or motor so that you could have an opportunity to change, to change your course. It gives us the opportunity to change our experience of being in a situation. That’s what all this “being lost” thing is. Something even more intriguing is why the human signed up for the belief that they are lost or the belief that they don’t know where they’re going. All that shit is happening because, if you speak to that person, you’ll find that they’ve been mostly trained to identify themselves from what the environment says they are.
Me: They define themselves according to the dictates external sources like parents, peers, siblings, advertisements, etc.
Erik: Right. So that internal compass is a little whack-o-whack.
Me: What?
Erik: Broken. They can’t rely on it when they need to in order to get inner guidance. They keep looking for someone on the outside to give them directions, to tell them how to see it or that they’re okay or even that they’re lost to begin with. If they don’t get the answers from these sources, they get stuck.
Me: Probably not a guy. They never ask for directions, broken compass or not!
Erik laughs.
Although unrelated, here’s another post courtesy of Helene Remøy.
