You Can’t Push Yourself out of Quicksand
“Change lives on the horizon.”
― T.F. Hodge
We’ve all been there (at least I have), when you realize that your current situation is far from the one you expected to be in, it may be your dwindling health, a sour relationship, financial struggles or career disappointments. When you are experiencing hurt, pain, hopelessness, shame and apathy it can become all consuming. Focusing on everything that you don’t want means that you’re merely putting more energy and time into the things that you blame for your current misery and unhappiness. You start getting comfortable with that unhappiness, it’s been with you for so long and the mind has been primed to go to those negative thoughts to keep fueling what has become your new normal.
It’s like being stuck in quicksand, all you can see is yourself sinking deeper and deeper, getting angrier and angrier at the quicksand for being so good at its job. You keep trying to get out by pushing on the quicksand, but that does no good. You want out, but in order to get out you need to look beyond the quicksand, you need to have something to pull yourself towards you need to FIND YOUR HORIZON.
“I can choose to see a horizon as yet another indistinct place that I can barely make out from where I’m standing, or I can see it as the backside of a glorious tomorrow. And the attitude that I choose to embrace will dictate every horizon that I get to pursue.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
Find Your Horizon
In order to get out of that suffocating quicksand you need to first find your horizon, which means you need to see where you CAN be. Sure you could just starve yourself as punishment, find a new relationship or a new job but that doesn’t mean that sometime in the future you won’t experience the same unhappiness, because that is all you’ve allowed yourself to see. Try envisioning yourself ahead of where you are now, strong, healthy and happy with your BACK towards the quicksand and your eyes staring ahead, keep the image in your mind until it becomes a belief.
Start Pulling
Start looking for that metaphorical life line that will lead you to that vision, not out of the quicksand but towards that future you. You may need to shout for help, but when you find that line grab on and start pulling yourself up. Keep your eyes ahead, know that a struggle will happen, the air may feel cold, you will feel vulnerable, and the pull of the quicksand will offer the warmth of comfortable unhappiness, DO NOT LOOK BACK. Your hands will surely slip a time or two, there may be days where you’ve made great progress and others where all you can do is hold on, so that is what you do, you hold on and hold your gaze towards that horizon. The rope may fray or even break, your hands will become raw and there most definitely will be tears but you hold your stare, and embrace all that you are experiencing knowing that you will stand on firm ground stronger from struggle.
You keep pulling, and the effort begins to lessen as your ability to find your way increases. You’ve formed calluses now, pieced together new lengths of ropes and found strength from those around you but most importantly from within yourself. The ground below you hardens and the drag of the quicksand weakens, your gaze is on your feet stepping into that once far off horizon. You’re completely engulfed in the flowers of your hard won happiness, and when you finally look back and the view has changed. You see the tracks of your effort, where the rope broke and you fastened a new one, the friends and family whose hands reached out along the way, the imprint where you lied down to breathe and then decided to keep moving, where you bled, where you cried, where you laughed and found more strength because you had to and the quicksand will be barely visible because it’s not what you’re looking at anymore.
See where you want to be, keep visualizing and close your eyes until you can actually begin feel what it will be like. It a lot harder to move forward when you’re pushing off the weight that is holding you down. Stop pushing yourself away and start pulling yourself ahead.
“Let us not remain anchored in the quicksand of a waning past, and lose the war on obliviousness, but let us listen to the bracing sounds of new horizons, grasp the enchantment of the fleeting instants and seize the cleverness of the moment. (Could time be patient?)”
― Erik PevernagieCopyright 2020 Strength & Grace Life Coaching LLC