When (it seems) that you don’t move forward…

From time to time it happens to me that I feel that I am still in the same place, that I have not moved forward, that I am walking in circles. I have not yet been in a situation where this has been true, that is why I put in the title that “it seems” that you do not advance, because I believe that the reality is that we are always advancing and changing at all levels.

So of course, my question was, if we are always, constantly advancing and changing, why do I have the feeling that I am not advancing?

So I started doing two things that I love, thinking and analyzing myself, and this is how I discovered two situations in which this feeling appeared.

First situation: The Future

The first situation where I identified that this feeling of stagnation appeared I have called “the future”, because it is there and only there where I was looking and thinking. I was so focused on the future that I had forgotten all that I had gone through, I was only looking at what I still had to go through. I have to say, discovering this gave me peace of mind, because now I knew that the next time I felt that stagnation it could simply be that I was too focused on the future, and that I was forgetting to live. Let’s say that at this point that feeling has become a warning, a warning that I am not living the way I want to live, that I am missing out on life.

In this particular situation what I do is stop, literally, go for a walk in silence, without headphones or human company, or I color mandalas, or I meditate; whatever it is, but it has to be alone and in silence. Whatever the activity, the objective is to look back and begin to bring to my mind moments previous to where I am now, they can be moments as close as that same day in the morning, or yesterday; or distant moments like when I was in college or high school.

I do this exercise with the objective of showing myself that I have advanced, but if I only look forward, it is normal to feel the opposite.

Second location: The Path

The second situation where I have identified that feeling of not moving forward, I have called it “the path”, because I realized that the feeling of not moving forward also appeared when I had already reached the end of a path or an experience. This feeling came back to warn me of something, and in this case it was to warn me that it was time to take a new path in order to continue growing. That does not mean that what was on that path or that experience was bad, not at all, it was simply not enough, and what I had at that moment, whether internal and/or external, was not what I needed to continue growing.

Although I know the situation very well and right now moments like that come to my mind, when I am in a situation like that, sometimes it is a challenge to identify it. So what I do is, first, rule out that it is not the previous situation, and once I have ruled that out, I start looking at what area or areas of my life is that I have completed a path. Once I have identified that path that I have finished, I look for what options I have to continue, and while looking for those options I always have in mind where I want to move forward. I usually come up with several options, analyze them and make a decision. I say this very easily but sometimes it is a challenge to see those options and make those decisions, because many times there are options that for convenience we do not want to see, and decisions that for fear we decide not to take.

I know it may sound like these decisions and changes have to be huge, but nothing further from the truth. In fact I make many more small decisions than big ones, for example, I decide to get up an hour before everyone else to have an hour of silence (I don’t always get it, because sometimes everyone gets up with me, but they let me have my hour of silence); or I decide to change my tone of voice when I am going to communicate to my partner something I wish him/her to improve; or I decide to have nuts every day, etc. I have also made big decisions, like moving to another country, changing my “professional career”, but those decisions, no doubt, are in the minority.

Why keep growing?

I don’t know if you are asking yourself, but I have been asked why do you want to keep growing? And my answer, now, is because I love it, because I am eager to see what I can become; and out of love, out of love for myself, because I believe I deserve to keep growing.

Who am I? I’m Victoria, a curious woman who likes to wonder about life… and who now shares it.