This is not the article I sat down to write this morning – it’s the article about what I do when I get mentally thrown off balance!
I wanted to write a piece this week about values. How if we can articulate our own values it can actually help in relating and being more aware of other’s perspectives. I had one of those beautiful experiences where, during my sitting practice, the whole article popped into my head and I knew what I wanted to write and was ready to let it all stream out after I’d dealt with the practicalities of the morning.
And then…
I got ‘the’ curveball that threw everything out. An organization I work with has extremely strong security protocols to protect their clients. When I switched my phone this month, I managed to get locked out of much of what I need access to in a way that no-one seems able to fix.
This isn’t going to be a long piece about my frustrations and incompetencies with technology (although it could be!) It’s about my frustrations with MYSELF and the fact that even a) having done what I can and b) knowing that I just need to wait until I hear back, I am completely unable to switch my focus to either what I wanted to write, or any of the other things that need my attention this morning (and could theoretically easily do because they are not tied up in this quagmire).
I notice this as a pattern for me with technological issues. I also notice it around other themes… when I can’t get a meeting scheduled and am waiting for the pieces to fall into place, or when I have a minor disappointment and then that is all I can focus on. I have a hypothesis that I would love to have confirmed or challenged, that these things may not resonate with you particularly, but that each of us have things that fall into the category of taking up all of our mental capacity even when we don’t logically think they should.
And then I have TWO things to be frustrated about – the initial frustration and my annoyance with myself that I can’t move on to other things.
I wish I had better solutions – for me all my usual practices to redirect (taking a break, doing some breathwork etc.) don’t work. It’s like walking up to a metaphorical wall, pushing and pushing and pushing to see if I can move the wall (I can’t) stepping back and taking a breath but then the wall is still there!
The only fix I have found is to turn around and walk in a completely different direction and see what that does (in this case writing about this rather than what I wanted to write about). To give me some relief from the mental pain of banging my head trying to walk through a wall! And then when I come back maybe I find it is no longer there, or I have instructions for dismantling it, or I have more capacity to vault over it.
I’d love to hear from you about a) whether this is a common experience and b) strategies you have for managing it.
And in the meantime I’m going to go back to my current wall and see if I have instructions on what to do next!
