Blog: When the personal stakes feel high
Updated: Jan 3
It is completely normal to find yourself spinning in circles when trying to come to a decision on a high pressure or high impact issue.
We have no certainty about what the outcome will be with choice a OR with choice b. And because its important to us, the consequences can feel very grave.
The pressure is often NOT about a deadline in the outside world. ( "Get this done by X, or there will be trouble!")
More often than not, the tension lives in a very invisible and interior space within us. Making it more insidious or stealthy. That shark lurking in the tank feeling. (We are on the most beautiful beach in the world, but we don't feel settled or able to enjoy life.)
No instead, when it comes to 'make or break' life-path dilemnas, our sense of deadline is often a 'self imposed' one.
The urgency has the message "if I don't make a change (or firmly make a decision in favour of the status quo), my life is going to be miserable. I am going to be on the wrong track or heading in the wrong direction -with me as both the kidnapper and the victim!"
This is how we come to walk around feeling a little like a zombie. We have shown up, we are doing all the right things.
But on the inside our minds are wrestling with the one thing that has not been resolved. Or put to rest.
The first thing to recognize is: It is not possible to accurately measure risk or to offer certainty about our future wellbeing, and so our most clever, most intelligent selves are frustratingly not as effective as they usually can be.
This pervasive feeling of 'unidentifable risk' can lock you into a very restricted way of responding and that is why it is imperative to change the tools you are using to make progress.
This is why we have mentors, life coaches, and therapists.
To open up the line of enquiry and bring spaciousness and oxygen to the table.
Recognising that our resources have been short-circuited, we give ourselves permission to pull in some assistance.
It's not forever. it's not a personal failing.
It's just the natural by-product of being a human that is built to find safety in the known, whilst we stare out facing the blinding headlights of the unknown.
