Sitting in Tensions

Recently I’ve been sitting in a space of beginnings and endings – feeling an array of emotions including excitement, loss, and acceptance across my experiences.  A variety of events have brought me here, including two graduations in my family, launching my radio show/podcast, the death of a dear friend, and transitioning out of a volunteer board role.  Each has given me pause, creating space to consider the impact they’re having on my life.  In turn, I’m realizing they’ve opened me up to tensions that spark different emotions, thoughts, and actions.

This space is teaching me to balance tensions in a new way. 

Tensions are everywhere.  Just think about the forces pulling you in one direction or another every day, whether it’s how we balance our time, spend our money, or wrestle with an old vs. new way of doing something.  Like an internal tug-of-war, we tend to bend to one side or the other.  It doesn’t mean that one is good and the other bad, but each has its own recognizable force.  Tensions can be powerful, with us usually gravitating toward the one we’re most comfortable with while feeling allergic to what opposes it.  And ultimately their impact is based on how we respond.

Viktor Frankl writes “mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.  . . . What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the starving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.  What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.”

Tensions exist to challenge us, reminding us to consider multiple perspectives, approaches, and solutions.  They present opportunities to grow.

How do I use this time to learn about myself and understand where I might grow?

As coaches, we talk about “sitting in discomfort” – a skill, when developed, that allows us to find meaning in challenging experiences.  Just as Frankl writes, rather than putting our energy into discharging the discomfort of tension, we benefit by spending our time exploring it.  Not a walk in the park, by any means – and made all the more difficult by our tendency to quickly move through discomfort and get to the other side as soon as possible, likely only minimizing the pain for the shorter-term. 

So here I sit, welcoming as much discomfort as I feel makes sense.  Not solutioning.  Not running away (or, at least, coming back when I seem to be rushing through or ignoring it).  Not only am I sitting in it, but have sunk into a big chair that’s enveloping me at times, making it hard to climb out of.  And that’s ok, despite how much I might fight it.

I’m starting to appreciate where I am, and honor that it’s hard (despite how much it can suck).  Giving myself grace to feel what I feel, and coming to terms with what I want to hold on to and let go of in the process.  As I’m spending time within these tensions, I’m continually reflecting and reminding myself we all react to their forces differently.  Remembering that others are struggling with their own challenges – or some of the same ones I am - and respecting their own passage through them. 

Navigating this path is opening up a view where I can see more clearly.  And I’m settling into spending more time sitting in the Barcalounger of my tensions to reset and learn.

Now is my time of growth and self-renewal.  But then again, what time isn’t?