Switch Focus to Get Unstuck

A friend of mine has found her life put on hold lately to take care of one of her kids at home for an extended period. She is beginning to wonder whether her current preoccupation with the situation is making it worse.

As Carl Jung said “What you resist not only persists, but it will grow in size”.

In her reflections, she recognised that several other child-related issues (that had been taking up a lot of her energy until this point) seem to have resolved themselves since her focus shifted. She realized perhaps her life didn’t need to be quite so on hold as it has been with all the ruminating and worrying she has been doing about things outside her control.

This has certainly been my experience. When I switch focus (preferably to something more positive), my resistance drops and issues resolve. The best example I have was my journey to having children, as I refer to in What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances. My kids are pregnancies five and six and only happened when I finally switched my focus to my overall health and wellbeing.

Just yesterday my youngest child jolted me awake to the tune of (cue tired, whiny voice) “I don’t want to go to school today”. Her protests continued for almost an hour, valid protests that pull at my heartstrings.

She is struggling in these early years at school; the focus and attention required literally drain her of all energy. In her words “there is too much telling and not enough freedom, too much working and not enough playing, and I am sad and angry and tired all the time and I don’t want to feel that way”.

It’s an authentic voice that wants to be heard and I wholeheartedly applaud that. I think many of us recognise those words even in adulthood. The question is what to do about it?

My kids don’t have an issue with their school per say, they like their teachers and friends and the environment. What they have an issue with is what they regard as the overly onerous attendance requirements and curriculum, which basically just follow the norms.

My daughter’s solution is that I should home school, just like another parent opted to do with one of her classmate’s recently. We have been round this block many a time. It’s hard to watch my kids struggle and not want to dive in and solve things for them. Yet I know that will usually only hinder their growth. 

That hasn’t stopped me feeling stuck around this issue many times, but when I have tried to step in its only exacerbated the problem. As I explained to my daughter, I am a writer not a primary school teacher; I would not be very good at that. But what I can do is use my writing to let people know what it’s like for kids, to create awareness and insight and advocate for change.

I share their views and advocate for shorter hours in those early years, and more child-led learning (for those interested, see the articles under Education).

I suggested to her that maybe one of the reasons she was having a tough time is to build up a big desire within her to do something about it for other kids as she grows up. But in the meantime, since it’s a legal requirement, she will need to shift her attention to the things she does like if she wants to feel any better about it. Her resistance to school is making her feel worse, so we are working on things she can control, that she does like, to help her process all these big emotions she has going on inside.

That said, it’s not always the case that there are no immediate solutions in sight. Often when I am feeling stuck, there are solutions I call red-herrings because they might address the immediate issues but they don’t solve the root cause.

I feel our culture values taking action beyond all else. But when I get stuck, it might be my circumstances that need to change or it might just be my perspective, but it is always my feelings.

There are many times in my life I have changed my circumstances and, after the excitement of new beginnings starts to fade, still felt the same swathe of negative emotions return that I had been seeking to resolve. When I’ve left relationships behind, or places, or jobs, and still come around the same loop – different time, different place, different person, I finally got the message that the answer was about changing something within me.

While I don’t always have all the answers in my head, I do have the answers in my heart and I’m getting better at listening to it. Whatever circumstances I am in, there may not be something I can immediately do to change those, but there is always something for me to learn.

This is where articles like We May Not Relate to Everyone but We Might Need to Hear What They Have to Say and What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? have come from. I recognise life is a mirror, and the players around me are reflecting opportunities for personal growth back to me  – usually about some aspect of my self worth.

Someone asked me the other day whether I’d reconsidered coaching or launching some sort of business in relation to these life lessons. I won’t deny the question of what I’ll be doing in the future is certainly of eternal curiosity but, rather than focus on things which I have no immediate answers to nor energy for, I have decided this year to focus on something I could steer and feel good about, my own health and wellbeing.

Having finally managed to create, grow and deliver new humans into the world and nurture them through these early years, my body would very much appreciate a bit of attention. In the last year I’ve returned to a loved activity, swimming, and listened to my body’s desire to eat more natural foods and cut out the more processed ones.

That is just for starters though. I’ve been paying more attention to the aches and grumbles that had somehow managed to become background noise for decades. When I’ve asked around for recommendations about health practitioners, I’ve let my heart take the lead in choosing them.

​Along the way I’m even learning about new modalities of healthcare, the different cell memories in my body and the interconnectedness with different events, slowly beginning to defrag myself towards the best health I’ve had in years.

Switching focus from the agonizing question of life purpose to doing everything I can to be in the best health now and moving forwards has changed my perspective significantly. It’s created a shift from resistance to open curiosity, and I am able to be present in the here and now for my kids, friends and family.

Life is out there to be lived now, not to be put on hold for some future moment. If you are living in the now, you are on purpose. So if you are currently feeling stuck, where is there an opportunity for you to switch focus and do something more positive for yourself?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, We May Not Relate to Everyone but We Might Need to Hear What They Have to Say and What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)?. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog