A Rock and a Hard Place

10-minute read and/or audio recording!

In one of Michael Meade’s recent podcasts, he shares the likely origin of a familiar phrase that describes how so many of us are feeling these days: “between a rock and a hard place.” In the epic tale of Jason and the Argonauts, the land they travel to in search of a golden fleece is flanked by massive rocks that smash together and decimate anyone who tries to get through. I won’t spoil the story for you if you want to give it a listen, but one of the take-aways is that it isn’t just about overcoming obstacles to get the coveted prize, it’s about what we are willing to give up along the way. If we are cunning and smart about it, the task won’t claim our lives, but we will lose a part of ourselves.

The story got me thinking about where I feel stuck not just between a rock and a hard place, but between opposing forces that are smashing together and seem to threaten everything. As our world becomes increasingly polarized, I can use all the reminders I can get that things are never black and white. Michael Meade is fond of reminding us that if we can hold the tension between opposites long enough, a creative third appears to reconcile them. Think: positive, negative, and neutral. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If I am just being tossed between seemingly opposing, unreconcilable options, I’m not part of the solution, or part of the on-going process of creation happening all around us all the time.

I like to talk about transformation, but in practice, I, like most of us, am usually looking for ease and comfort. If it’s too hard, it’s not worth it. Or I’m jumping to the opposite side and thinking that nothing’s worth it if it isn’t hard. Where does this idea of “hard” come from? When I look for it, it seems tied to my own confusion, fear, and impatience. I’m worrying about what will happen “if”. I’m eager for things to get moving and come together already, today, now, thank you very much! Or I’m running back and forth between this and that trying to figure out which one will get me where I think I need to be going. It’s exhausting.

But if I choose instead to focus not on the opposites, or on the outcome, but on the process of holding the tension between what seems impossible to integrate, the entire experience changes. I am already accomplishing the goal: to hold space. And I am doing so with a deep, deep faith that something will arise. I don’t know what it is, it’s not up to me to figure it out, but it is coming. That’s a deeply comforting thought that enables me to hold discomfort and toil without my habitual attitude of suffering. And that’s soil for previously unknown things to sprout.

Where I am feeling this clash most acutely, and where I realize I have been experiencing it my whole life, is between what I think of as living my soul’s calling and my need to survive in this time and place. And boy, oh boy, have I gotten smashed up in between the two. I have pursued lovers, left a marriage and career, indulged in substances, created art, devoted myself to spiritual communities, invested in programs, created trainings and a business, camped and traveled alone all to honor and get closer to my calling. And along the way I’ve been assaulted, traumatized, developed a couple of addictions and auto-immune disorders, lost a lot of money, been humiliated and hurt people I’ve cared about.

I’ve also earned a college degree, built a career, stayed in a relationship for 10 years, run an organization, tended a home, showed up for people who needed me, and gotten sober and healthy many times. And along the way I struggled with depression, restlessness, disconnection, longing, and confusion which fueled my eagerness to set it all on fire and start again more soulfully. What’s changed, if I’m completely honest, is that I’ve gotten too tired of getting smashed up to take another leap.

Perhaps this is precisely how wisdom comes with age. We spend enough time seeking that we see our fruitless patterns and the toll they take is no longer worth the risk that maybe this time will be different. Then we start to ask what else there is besides the daily grind and the seasonal romp. Some people are honestly fine spending their lives in one or the other. I have met members of both camps. But if you’re like me and are feeling what seems like irreconcilable pulls to both deep roots and soulful living, you may also be wondering how it’s possible.

I’m beginning to suspect it starts with sacrificing my belief that there is another person, place, job, or idea that will rescue me, some place that will wrap me in a warm, safe cocoon where I can create and play without cares, some place where everyone appreciates what I honor and speaks my language. It might be out there, but I give up trying to find it. If I am to survive the grind, it’s up to me to find the thread of soul inside myself and pull it out into my days. It’s not about finding someone else to do it – some friend, lover, author, teacher, filmmaker, therapist. Because if I did, it wouldn’t be my thread, but theirs.

What a lonely and thrilling place to be! I am all alone on my quest, and yet I have everything, everything I need. I think of the monks in Burma who were put in solitary confinement for a decade and came out as close to the divine as ever. If they can do it, so can I. I have no control over time and place. But I do control the “what”. What am I thinking of? What am I spending my time, attention, and money on? What am I sharing with others? What do I value and what do I stand for? What am I willing to sacrifice and what is sacred?

Today I find myself in a job that trains my mind to linear tasks and details, turns conversations into transactions, and leaves just a handful of moments at the end of the day once everything is tidied, cleaned, fed, paid, and reassured. I dream of the articles and books I want to write, classes I want to teach, things I want to study and practice, communities I want to build and the ideas and hope I want to share. It is so, so hard not to feel resentful, not to pity myself. I wonder why I have been given glimpses of these things if I have not been shown how to actualize them in any consistently fulfilling way.

That is because my task is simply to pursue them. My task is to not allow the world I’ve been born into, and all its counter-values, make me doubt what I am and what I love. My task is to be loyal to this love not the way lovers flirt on holiday, but the way lovers stay committed when the bills come and the children come and the home repairs and the relatives and the sickness and deaths come. I have not been given these gifts to drift away with them into a utopia, but to bring them right here, now, where people may not understand or appreciate them. I get to learn how to nurture them, first for myself and then in the right time and place for others. I get to learn how to give them space to unfold in their own time and not be greedy for the gratification of having them always near me and watching them soar. My task is to see how everything I’ve experienced, everything I struggle with and have lost, every aspect of my current circumstances are all soil for my gifts if I choose to see them that way.

My task, above all, is to remember that my gifts are not here to serve me. I am here to serve my gifts. And sometimes that means feeling lost, overlooked, confused, and like I’ve failed.

I am bringing soul into unraveling addiction. I am bringing soul into living with chronic illness. I do not know how I will do it, but today that is my best understanding of what is before me. I am willing to be wrong. I am willing to fail and look the fool. And I am willing to trust that the next steps will appear if I can hold the tension between this longing and what is mine to do today.

Nancy