320: The First Step is to Admit 'This is Hard for Me'

"The first step", writes Paul Weinfield, is not reaching for a solution to our difficulties but "the willingness to admit 'this is hard for me'". It's this move that gives us the opportunity to let go of the habitual ways we have of 'holding up the heavens'. And when we do this, we have the chance to enter into a series of discoveries about the force and patterns of our own personality and assumptions - and maybe even to find out what of the scaffolding that we use to hold everything up is ready to fall so that something else can grow. 



In this conversation Lizzie and Justin consider how it is that we come to know when it's time to solve, and when it's time to open to what's new, and how we might each help one another do that.



Hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.



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Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.



Here’s our source for this week:



The Willingness to Admit 'This Is Hard for Me'



The first step is not a solution, but the willingness to admit, “This is hard for me.” For as long as we deny that our lives can be difficult, we will always act from our conditioning and take the same ineffectual actions. But if we can sit with compassion for ourselves, our innate wisdom can show us how to truly be there for ourselves, and, eventually, how to let go.



Compassion feels a bit like rain at the end of a hot summer day. There’s a sense of relief in letting it all come down. Yes, you have to let go of some control. You have to let go of trying to hold up the heavens with your solutions, strategies, and stories of right and wrong. But maybe all that scaffolding needs to fall. Maybe none of it kept you safe in the first place. Maybe, all the while, there’s been a child tugging at your sleeve, saying, “Can we go now? I don’t want to fight any more. Just stay with me. All I want is for you to stay with me.”



Paul Weinfield 

www.paulweinfieldcoaching.com/about