Follow Your Heart .. Through Life’s Challenges, Part 2
This is Part 2 of a 3 article series
We will look at my processing through 3 recent frustrating experiences, by describing:
My raw personal process of feeling stuck in confusion and overwhelm,
about the experience of unexpectedly being stuck in situations wherein, for 2 of the 3, I still don’t know where or when the solutions will emerge,
how this experience got exacerbated when the situation was important to me and I wanted it resolved - now,
how it became a wake up call to the process for generating new, more effective, ways of responding to this pattern of challenge,
which included generating access to my heart intelligence,
enabling the perspectives and action for creating needed solutions.
Overview
I was enjoying a good beginning of week. Then I was confronted by 3 separate situations - my credit card was suddenly blocked, a project important to me was indefinitely delayed, and some important appointments on a carefully planned trip were indefinitely postponed.
These 3 situations were unrelated. Yet they were similar in that they were unexpected, w/o my agreement, and affected me personally.
We all experience these types of situations. They can stir a windstorm of confusion and upset.
Here’s what happened.
For simplicity, we’ll focus on one of these situations.
I reside and travel in both the U.S and in Brazil. So I have banking in both countries.
This past week, I withdrew $1,200 in cash from my Brazil bank's ATM. I do this regularly.
A few hours later, when paying for lunch at a cafe, I discovered my credit card was unexpectedly blocked. I had not received notice this would happen or why.
At this time, I was away in a rural area and a few hours from the nearest city and a satellite branch of my bank.
In brief, I had several calls with my bank’s customer service. After experiencing extended waiting times to speak with someone, I was given specific instructions to do something but it did not reactivate my credit card This happened 5 times over the next 3 days. I was becoming increasingly frustrated. I’ve had several similar experiences with this bank over recent years.
During these few days I also discovered an important business project was indefinitely delayed, and the key appointments on a carefully planned trip were indefinitely postponed.
It was clear I needed emotional support so I called a close friend who has been helpful in the past. She helped me call my bank 3 times but with the same result. So during a time we were on-hold to speak with the bank, I complained to her about my overwhelming confusion and frustration. It felt like my frustration was bleeding all over the place.
However expressing the intensity of my frustration, as best I could, enabled a personal wake-up call.
I realized:
1) I felt stuck in a spin-cycle of inability to resolve a series of unrelated situations, including this one that never should have happened - I wanted clear access to my assets - but it wasn’t getting resolved easily or quickly.
2) I felt confused and angry. It was like being stuck in a deep pool of cold water while wearing heavy lead-boots.
3) The 3 days of ineffective phone calls had crushed my tolerance for dealing with the uncertainty about finding a solution.
4) I needed to employ the necessary practices to calm my emotion and clear my mind, allowing time for the emotional dust to settle so I could figure out my best next step(s).
Further realizations as my mindset began to clear:
1) I could see how I was thinking of my bank as an adversary, when in reality, we needed to find a way to work together to find a solution.
2) This was an opportunity for creating new ways of dealing with my confusion and overwhelm when dealing with these types of challenge. This engaged my motivation to deal with it.
3) Generating access to my heart intelligence was necessary for enabling the inner calm and quiet for seeing, understanding, and responding to my situation(s) more clearly.
4) Being patient and trusting with these processes could reposition me to discover or create the needed solutions.
Action steps for creating change.
1) I revisited my earlier articles about dealing with extreme stress and mindfulness. It is one thing to understand something conceptually but another thing to apply it during stress. So rereading the relevant information was a good reminder and also the encouragement I needed to apply it now.
2) Releasing the intensity of my frustration was clearly the next step. My body, emotions and thinking all felt heavy. So I went for an aggressive walk along extreme up and down hiking trails. This increased my rate of breathing and the rapid exercise released a lot of the tension I was holding in my body. In response, my mind was also beginning to relax from its tunnel vision.
3) My support system involves ongoing communication with both personal friends and colleagues. We talk and share every week. So when needed, I know who to call for support in relevant areas.
I reached out to several of these relationships for support. We focused on a number of areas, including
simple decompressing for regaining calm and focus,
noticing patterns of when I respond effectively or ineffectively to a stressful situation,
practical steps for understanding the present situation(s) and generating solutions,
along with remembering I am not isolated and alone with any of this.
4) Generating access to my heart intelligence required I continue to decompress. Mindfulness is one of the practices I find essential for creating the conditions for slowing my inner pace so I can experience the subtle, felt-sense of my heart’s communication.
So I went for a number of walks. This is something I do a few times daily as a way to continually clear my head and emotions. I also find it especially useful when feeling severely stuck about something. The walking, and breathing more deeply, helps release the tension in my body. Also integral to mindfulness is simply focusing on whatever is in front of me, such as the tree, the rock, the building, …, without thinking about my concerns.
Focusing mindfully on the present moment helps to release the preoccupations. This is a progressive process which requires discipline. So I’ll do it repeatedly until my mindfulness becomes more stable.
Along the way, I’ll incorporate other mindfulness practices throughout the day, such as, starting and ending my day with a period of mindfulness (5 to 30 minutes), as well as a moment of focused quiet before every meal or appointment, ….
Our heart’s intelligence is always communicating with us, even though it can be easy to overlook. I do my best to be aware of and receptive to these communications.
In brief, here are simple steps I use when wanting to have direct communication with my heart intelligence.
Select a time when I am likely to be open and ready, such as, earlier or later in my day.
Do a mindfulness practice, long or short, enabling the calm and stillness for experiencing this communication. In effect, this also helps release any preferences or expectations.
While mindfully breathing, ask simple questions of my heart’s intelligence. For example - "How can I better understand …?” "What is true for me about …?” I would then continue to be mindfully quiet and still, while noticing any felt-sense in response. I find when I am relaxed, regardless of my questions and concerns, my felt-sense is usually accurate for understanding my heart’s guidance. I may ask further questions. For example, “How can my understanding be true? Not true?” And I may circle back at a later time to repeat the process. With experience, I’ve learned to recognize when I am being open with a felt-sense of flow, or resisting with a feeling of judgment, about the information I’m receiving. Overall, I’ll wait for a felt-sense of clarity before making a decision for then taking action.
My second book, Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Becoming Your Destiny, illustrates this process in more detail.
Emerging solutions
It can be interesting and useful to look back at stressful situations. Where was I stuck? What generated growth and solutions? The review can also help realize my experience don't need to be difficult.
Facing these 3 situations, I learned to apply the relevant practices more quickly and effectively. For example, after learning I needed to change a carefully planned trip, and within 3 days, I promptly went for a brisk walk to calm my emotions and slow my thinking. I then called a colleague and received support about the options for rescheduling. So within a few hours my mood progressed from piercing anxiety to realizing there were solutions which might actually be an improvement to the original plan. I was being reminded I could trust myself and the process.
A number of solutions emerged. 1) My credit card has been reactivated. Further, after a few years of unsatisfactory situations, I’ve finally researched and found a more reliable bank with offices in both Brazil and the US. I will be transferring my financial activity to this new bank. 2) I have an appointment with the lead person involved in our delayed project to understand what needs to be resolved for it to move forward. 3) My carefully planned trip has been rescheduled and it now includes several additional appointments that we were not able to include the original schedule. NOTE, the coordination of new schedules required a clear focus guided by repeated inquiry about, “how can we do this, or that?” My travel agent even called me 2x during the final hours before the deadline for changing the flight schedule, telling me, “the airlines say we can’t do what you’re wanting". But it all got done. Trusting the process and focusing on finding the solutions. Smiles.
Post Note
I was pleased and content to have rescheduled everything. Yes!
Then 2 days later I received another communication to reschedule, with a significant change, one of the appointments.
In brief, I quickly realized this needn’t be a concern. But, it was another sudden and unexpected change.
Even though I had just progressed through 4 days of a bigger yet similar change, I again initially felt disoriented. My emotions and thinking were heavy. I had liked the restored certainty about my scheduled trip and I didn’t want to deal with this new change. But I had to.
So I dealt with it. In all, this new change required 4 hours to process and resolve.
We are reminded the pace and scope of change impacting us during recent decades is unpredictable and intensifying.
2 Questions
What are the fundamentals we are being called to generate for fortifying the stability, personal and collective, through these current conditions?
1) For starters:
Realizing these days - months - years continue greeting us with major cycles of change as a way of helping us transform into a new way of living.
Ongoing practices including mindfulness, self care, support with circle(s) of trust, ...
2) What can, and will, you add to this list?
I’m interested in hearing about your responses. Email is best.
Applying your insights
How does this information describe your experience in the situations you are facing?
Note 2 or 3 insights and practices that spoke with you.
How can they make a difference as you progressively incorporate them into your day?
What is the first step? Schedule it. Do it.
Part 3 of this article series will be posted October 18th. It will illustrate the life-challenge of facing my divorce several years ago, and generating my life after it. I will share detail about the challenges, along with the ways I called upon and followed my heart’s guidance. The adventure became a transformative experience which led to my now living and working in ways I had not yet imagined. And my life continues to unfold anew.
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otan@otanpatrickford.com 1.973.229.7174 https://www.otanpatrickford.com
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AUTHOR via amazon.com
Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Living with Fierce Authenticity, 2014
Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Becoming your Destiny, 2017