Get Unstuck by Untying your Mind
My 9 year old is learning to yo-yo. He bought himself a fancy one and has been checking out YouTube videos for tricks. He’s improving quickly. It’s super cool.
But there’s this one trick that’s hard for him. When he doesn’t get it, the string ends up wound up into a knot. Then, in irritation, he pulls on it and the knot gets tight and tiny. It’s almost impossible to get out.
For days he was coming to me with this yo-yo string all knotted up asking me to undo it for him. Fun fact: I actually like untying knots. That is, until I had to do it every 20 minutes for an entire weekend. Finally I told him he could learn to untie his own knots.
Sounds a lot like my coaching practice.
KNOTTED WOMAN
When most women come to me for coaching they’re not coming in with a picture-perfect life. No, they come to me because they want help figuring something out. Something in their lives doesn’t feel quite right. They have a sense that there could be a different way of doing things, one that feels more peaceful. Or they feel that they could be living in a more aligned and authentic way… but something is blocking them from doing that. It’s like they’ve tied themselves up in a bunch of tiny knots.
Those tiny knots get tied up around each other, and life starts to feel like one big rat’s nest. When that happens folks feel pretty stuck. Trying to change one little thing starts to pull on the next thing and the next until finally they’re overwhelmed. Once overwhelm shows up, there’s no forward movement. Unfortunately, a lot of folks stay stuck for years (not kidding) because they don’t ever learn how to untie their own knots.
FIND A WIGGLE
So that’s where a helpful coach or mentor can step in. They can help you untangle some knots at first. Eventually they should teach you how to do it yourself.
When it was time to teach my son how to untie the yo-yo string I talked to him about finding the mid-point of the knot and wiggling it. The more he wiggled on side of the knot, and the other, the more the knot started to slide. Eventually he learned to wiggle it out enough that there was space in the middle. Then it was a process of pulling strings further and further apart from each other until he could slip the knot out.
It’s the same when you’re working through your own knotted mind. Start with a single thread, not the entire nest. If you can find one tiny area and get a wiggle into it, you’ll be amazed at how much of the knot can unravel.
MY OWN BIG KNOT
Here’s an example from my own life. When my kids were really little I was always stressed about childcare. Simply getting a babysitter brought up so many of my beliefs about what was acceptable in my mothering. Things like: Getting a babysitter means I don’t care enough about my children. Not getting a babysitter means I don’t care enough about myself. Getting a babysitter means my kids will be angry with me. Not getting a babysitter means I’ll be a bad yoga teacher because I don’t have time to plan. And on and on and on…. until it became a huge tangled knot and I felt paralyzed by it.
To de-tangle this particular knot I couldn’t pull on all those threads at the same time. Doing that would just make the knot tighter. Instead I picked the one about my kids being mad at me and examined it. Was it true? Would my kids really be mad at me?
When I worked with it, I remembered my son doing his happy dance when the babysitter showed up, and how happy my daughter was when she was playing with her favorite babysitter. Turns out my kids weren’t mad at me at all… in fact they loved having babysitters.
Once that realization set in, a little side of the knot started to untangle. I did some more questioning with another belief or two… and more parts of the knot unraveled. And then it just wasn’t a thing anymore. I didn’t have to unravel every single tiny thought. . Just getting a few key ‘threads’ loose allowed the rest of it to fall away. Then I was free to get a babysitter whenever I needed one without having to stress about it.
A SINGLE THREAD
I used this example because it shows that you don’t have to take on everything all at once. Usually women get a little cranky with me when I say we’re going to spend our coaching hour on only one tiny part of what they want to deal with. I think they’re ready for change and don’t see how just a small thread can make much of a difference. But that’s where the difference is. Loosen up one part and you offer more freedom to the whole. So it’s worth it to slow down and work with only one thread. A few good wiggles and eventually the whole knot comes free.
UNTIE YOURSELF
The next time you notice you’re caught in a knot grab a journal and try this
Write down all the threads that are tangled in the knot. Some threads will probably be in your mind and beliefs. Others will be logistical or in the real world. Write them all down.
Pick 1-3 to work with. You might choose the most irritating ones. Or, if this is a particularly triggering situation, pick the ones that are the least irritating.
For each thread, ask yourself some questions: Is this really true? Is there another way of seeing this? Does thinking this way bring me peace? Would my best friend see it this way? and whatever else makes sense to you to ask… you’re looking for perspective, wiggle room.
Then switch the threads to the opposites and see how that feels to you. In my example: “My kids are mad at me when I get a babysitter” becomes “My kids are happy with me when I get a babysitter”
Play around until you feel a little more space about the situation.
This exercise isn’t meant to change everything all at once. It’s a lot like my son learning to wiggle the yo-yo string knot. This exercise puts some wiggle room into your thoughts. That space makes it possible for your mind to unwind the tangle. It might not happen at first, but I bet you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can find enough space to start solving the problem on your own.
LOOSENED THREADS
Life gets kind of amazing when you can untangle your own knots. You go from feeling stuck and overwhelmed to being in flow, fully capable of handling whatever life brings you. You’re moving moving again. You’re able to get free from your limiting beliefs. And your mind doesn’t hold you back so much anymore. This doesn’t mean that you never tie yourself up in knots again. It just means that when you do, you can untie yourself.
It’s like my son. His yo-yo tricks are coming along. Now, he’s way less frustrated with the learning process because he when the knots inevitably happen he can untie them and keep on practicing. That’s what I want for you.