Make Space for Hope

Jamie Nami Kim
Aug 25, 2017 · 3 min read

Yesterday I received a note from my client who I will call Lisa.

Lisa has long been challenged by her unhappiness with her job. She hasn’t known what is next for her and has tried countless ways to make her situation work. But nothing she’s tried has positively shifted her experience.

Lisa is now on holiday and instead of enjoying her time away, she lays awake in the middle of the night plagued by thoughts of quitting and all that could go wrong off the back of that. Her anxiety and stress levels have reached an all time high.

Lisa’s experience is a common one. Feeling lost, hopeless and directionless are feelings I hear from many (if not most) of my clients. This post is about sharing my response to Lisa’s moment of feeling vulnerably lost. Similar to what I spoke about in my last post, taking a pause is an ode to self care that we all need to express more in life. Being motionless is counterintuitive when we are in a state of trouble, but being with our fears may create the space for hope to arise.

— —

Dear Lisa,

Reading your email brought back a lot of memories for me. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was overtaken by insomnia — laying there awake at 2am and then 4am and then 6am — ‘might as well just get up now.’ Feeling like a zombie the entire day and developing eye bags that no amount of makeup could hide. I was listless and that state of being became my status quo until I really ‘woke up’ and decided I wanted something different for myself.

What you’re experiencing feels like a lot. Big adult life decisions, right? A lot of crazy thoughts in your head, right?

It’s natural and easy to get carried away by the weight of it all. You want so badly to fix it and come to a resolution. Create progress. Move through this quickly to get to the other side.

So it’ll sound a bit counter intuitive for me to ask you to STOP and STAND STILL in this moment. And it’ll also feel impossible and scary to do.

I want to share this poem that my mentor often refers to.

Lost
By David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,/
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

— -

Stand still.
I know you can do this because you’ve done this before.
Remember when you were a kid and the teacher would just make the class stand still because you were acting up? Standing still, calmed you down and helped you to hit the internal ‘reset button’ with a calmer mind.

What I’m asking you to do is actually not that different. Giving more airtime to these noisy voices in your head will not create the space for newness to arise. All these thoughts are nothing but empty stories.

So instead, stand still.
Create space.

Have hope because you know you’ve done this before.
Have trust because the forest will find you.

Love,
Jamie

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