Stuck In The Muddy Mess Of Transformation

As I unpacked my new hairdryer and removed it from the box, I excitedly said to my husband, “oh my gosh, I love it! It’s teal.” I hadn’t paid much attention to the color when I ordered it, I just wanted that particular model. It is fascinating how this color keeps showing up in my life though, because it also happens to be one of the accent colors we chose for the refresh design in our bedroom and bathroom.

Interestingly, teal, green and light blue are the colors associated with the Wood Element in Feng Shui. Wood energy is symbolic of spring and new beginnings. It is also pretty good at breaking up the sometimes stuck energy of Earth. Curiously, those are precisely the colors that I seem to be drawing in. The synchronicity is spot on, because lately, I have been feeling completely stuck and rudderless, hopelessly in need of a change.

Somedays, it feels like the only meaningful work I do is making sure everyone has their laundry in the hamper by Friday, or having dinner on the table by six. Necessary, but not exactly groundbreaking work. Even getting out of the house to go to the mailbox can seem like a chore.

I happen to be going through a cycle of time the ancient Chinese referred to as, a year of transformation. In a year like this things can really become unclear, like staring down into a puddle of muddy water. And as if that is not difficult enough, it also happens to be colliding with that fact that I have just become an empty nester. 

Though I have been studying this system for many years, and I know these cycles well, this one feels particularly challenging. It is like being in the middle of the ocean with no new land on the horizon. We have all been through it, those moments in life when we reach the end of something, a job, a relationship, kids going off to college, retirement, a milestone birthday. But those periods in the middle of uncertainty can seem quite expansive, between the end of one goal or phase in life, and the beginning of the next.

As much as I want to breakout of this stuck place I find myself in, I also know there is no way around it. Even though I would like nothing better than to sit down at the kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of coffee, and just figure it all out, that is not going to happen.

So how do we keep moving when we find ourselves stuck, floating in the sea of uncertainty, unable to see where we are going? One way is to bring a little Wood Element in to break up the stuckness and get moving again.

We can introduce Wood’s energy into our spaces symbolically with color, plants or shapes, but we can also usher it in with action. Wood Element is all about action – beginning, middle, end – move on. And as is the case with Wood energy, continually seeking out new goals to pursue, we also may not just have one destination to follow. Instead of asking ourselves how to figure out what that one best solution or way out of stuckness is, maybe we should try coming up with three different scenarios (which coincidently, is also the number that represents Wood Element).

Although trying different things may seem obvious, when we can’t see where we are going and nothing is very clear, we need something to work on to bring us closer to that end goal. Breaking things down to create tiny little goal helps lift our spirits and brings us one step closer, and even just one step closer to that final goal, is an achievement when we are lingering in the middle.

But what if we have no idea where we want to go, or there is no final direction on the horizon, as is the case with me? That’s okay, it’s a call to action. Sometimes we are meant to slow down and reevaluate our life’s path. There always comes a point in time when we plateau, just as with an athlete or an artist, our muscles get used to the way we are performing. We get into a rut and we lose a little bit of our creativity in the process. At those moments in time, it can be good to just set it down, walk away and try something completely unrelated and different. And slowly, as the land starts to surface on the horizon again, we gain renewed enthusiasm and momentum.

But for now, I’ve just got to sit with my thoughts and let this transformation of life take root. And as my Chinese acupuncturist wisely says when I ruminate on a problem for too long, “no new Information is coming in, work on something else for a while.”