Can you think of a disagreement, relationship dynamic, or pain point that you keep encountering? Perhaps you realize midway through the frustration that you’ve made it here again and you want to run? Sometimes, the walls we’re continuously hitting are the points of surrender that we need to address most.
My daughter has faced sleep challenges throughout the years, much like I did when I was younger. I’ve gone through a roller coaster of a process trying to figure out a possible cause, different types of solutions, and more. After mentally exhausting myself and hitting the same “wall” over and over again, I finally came to the end of myself. I realized that I couldn’t do much about it, I couldn't control it, and fighting it wasn't going to make it better, but it was actually making it worse. So I surrendered. I waved the white flag. And I felt a prompt to instead lean in. I told her that if she woke up and was up for more than a set amount of time, to come get me and I would sit with her. It turns out, that she just needed presence, and then the worry or fear could dissipate. It made me think about the walls we hit in life or relationships repeatedly. If you keep banging your head up against the same “wall” or relationship dynamic, it's time for a change. Our stubborn human nature doesn’t want to surrender, so we do everything we can to fight it, but sometimes we have to acknowledge that we are simply not winning. Trying to force the issue at hand or push back in the same way one more time is likely going to do nothing unless something changes.
I wonder what it would look like if we identified the “wall”, how we’re repeatedly responding to it, and then asked ourselves how we could respond differently through a lens of seeing, knowing, and hearing the other person involved. I wonder what defenses it would bring down and what breakthroughs would begin to happen over time on both sides - and even if not on the other side, the breakthroughs within us. What would happen if we operated from a place of realizing that we can only control ourselves and we’re only responsible for ourselves? I believe if we let go of the rest, we’ll feel a lot freer, and the great part is, that we all have access to that freedom.
We all have a choice when we encounter those proverbial walls. Will we engage in the tug of war for being right or having control over the conversation, or will we take a pause and let go of the rope? When you think about yourself letting go of the rope, do you feel a bit lighter already? I know I do. We can trade a false sense of control and the need to be right in the eyes of others for an internal peace that far surpasses holding onto that rope. And every one of us can do it by letting go of proving, justifying, and explaining ourselves away.
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