What do you do when you care deeply about something, but things don’t go according to plan? I’m not talking about everything going catastrophically wrong, but just in an irritating, maddening and very human way that can happen when something means a lot to you.
Maybe the healing journey is longer than you expected and takes an unexpected turn. Maybe the version of yourself you’re trying to grow into feels exciting one day and impossibly vulnerable the next. Maybe the new business you started grows more slowly than you hoped, or your latest creative project feels more difficult and complicated than you imagined.
When we care deeply about something, we can’t pursue it with the same kind of energy we use for routine daily tasks. Meaningful things ask something different of us: patience, faith, concentration, vision, and hope. Whether it’s healing from something painful, building business skills, learning to speak more honestly or growing into your potential, caring deeply can be life-enhancing and rewarding, but it also makes us vulnerable.
It seems to me that this is because many of us imagine that if we care enough, try hard enough or believe strongly enough, things should unfold in a reasonably clear and predictable way. We think that passion and effort will somehow spare us from frustration, disappointment or long stretches of uncertainty. But is this really true? What tends to happen is that reality kicks in and things become far less straightforward. New information emerges and there are twists and turns. The thing we thought would work, doesn’t. Or maybe it works, but in a more roundabout way than we expected.
The impact of all this can mean we start to lose focus as self-doubt creeps in. People often tell me that they find themselves overthinking and second-guessing their gut instinct. We start leaning into external validation and asking others what they think, I call this putting your ideas out for tender, or whether we should just give up, let it go. Or we could pivot and become a completely different version of ourself. Many of the people I teach report feeling despair as their thoughts become jumbled. One person put it this way: ‘It’s such a cacophony of words and thoughts, it makes my head hurt’.
It seems to me, though, that this is part of the magic. The ‘messy bit’ is creativity in the making, as the jumbled thoughts find their place. The ideas, talent and drive are all there, but not yet in the right order to make sense. This is what happens for some people when they feel passionate about something, whether this is getting better, a business issue, a life transition, a relationship or a creative path. It could be about finding a more authentic way of being in the world.
Learning how to stay true to yourself when things become messy and you feel vulnerable is the most important thing. Leaning into support while you’re navigating uncharted waters and learning how to tolerate all the twists and turns without collapsing into self-doubt. The big issue here is knowing yourself in the first place. That’s why the Resolving Chronic Pain process involves time for self-exploration, giving you a chance to update your understanding of who you are. What makes you tick, what are your core beliefs now - as opposed to years ago? We work together to identify the people, beliefs and ideas that matter most to you.
We all know how exhausting it is to be stuck in indecision, spinning endlessly between different approaches, different experts, different possibilities. Should I try this, or that? What if this person knows better than I do? What if I make the wrong choice? Staying trapped in that kind of uncertainty drains the energy we need to move forward. At some point, you have to discern. Once you’ve gathered information, the next step is to listen inwardly and respect your instincts. Then you can choose what feels right enough for now, releasing us from the bind you’ve been in. You can move forward with conviction, while remaining flexible enough to respond to new information as it comes up.
You can still care deeply while being responsive to reality. All you need is the willingness to trust yourself enough to adapt as the path unfolds; to keep listening to yourself, even when things feel messy or uncertain, or are happening more slowly than you’d expected. This is one of the hardest parts of meaningful growth: learning how to keep faith without gripping too tightly. If you’ve put time into understanding who you are, the essence of your own personality, you’ll be able to continue moving forward even when the path takes an unexpected turn.
I’d like to thank my colleague Anna Holtzman of ‘Seen & Safe’ for her inspiration as we discussed caring deeply.