A Time for Everything Under the Sun
written by Yoek Ling
‘Stuck’ is a funny word and one with which I have a tense relationship. A disposition towards forwards motion is something that years of school had trained me well for - as we progressed from one grade to another with clear markers of achievement at each stage, year after year. Yet finding that same flow in life is very much more elusive.
Not that we deliberately planned for it, but during this CB period when many of us are literally stuck at home, we at Bold have been having several parallel conversations on the idea of ‘stuck’. The most recent one being a conversation through yoga with Leandra, that we just wrapped up.
And a conversation it was, though not so much through words but contemplative motion. A few insights on ‘stuck’ emerged:
Staying with what is:
When we encounter delays, doubts and discomfort can arise. As Leandra was leading us through the Baptiste power vinyasa sequence, and we transited from an intense flow of moving from pose to pose, to windows where we simply held a certain pose for a few breaths, I found my mind getting impatient with what is. I wanted to move on to what’s next.
Only later did I realise: the discomfort came in that, in the stillness, there was nothing to do but to be with my own breath, and I found myself getting anxious and breathless. At times, there is nothing external to move and mold and change; at times, what needs to change is in me.
It reminded me of how in life, sometimes when circumstances are beyond our control, we are the ones who have to adjust and change. Like when Ray talks about how geography and the nature of the industry may mean film-making is just never going to be at the scale he’d hope it would be. In such times, we have to do the more discomforting thing of turning the lens to ourselves, and examine what we are holding on to that we may need to change. Be it preferences, beliefs or even shifting parts of our identity.
Preparing for what’s next:
And yet ‘stuck’ is not a static thing. Believing that it is static is a big reason I feared and resisted being ‘stuck’. But there is a place between fighting and giving up, and that place is called holding and waiting.
In life, I normally refuse to entertain the idea of ‘settling’; somehow thinking it equates to forever being stuck in a place where I would rather not be. Yet I was reminded during the yoga class, that with every breath, I am taking in something new and releasing something old. Life is never static, and things are moving and changing all the time, even if we do not feel like it.
To hold and wait is not to be passive. Rather, it is an active posture as we remain open and fully engage with all of what our circumstances allow and present to us. It is a place where we position ourselves for the next window of opening and opportunity.
How we wait determines what opens up next. I thought of how again, this is not new. Gracie and Limin had said as much in sharing about how what matters is how we handle ourselves in times of crisis.
Stuckness can give way to flow in an instant. Stuck may feel like an interminable wait, as it can seem when it looks like nothing is happening. But I am more able to stay with what is, when I recognise the flow that is happening, if only I paid attention to it, and to know that the plateau is a period of training for what is to come.
The breakthrough is waiting just over the edge; we never fully know how close to the edge we may be. But the work is to stay committed and stay disciplined regardless.