Deep down inside, I know when I am near (or at) threshold, even if I can’t see it. Sometimes this materializes as a struggle with mental and/or physical manifestations. Other times, I do not notice the struggle, but if I take the time to spend time with myself, it is always there, ready to be noticed.
When a struggle is obvious, my choice is to notice pay heed to it. At times, the struggle is because I don’t want the inconvenience of changing even when I want the change. Other times, I really want the change but I just can see how to pull it off. When the time is right, the struggle ceases and off I go. In both of these struggle, there is great learning in exploring what is really going on within me – if I choose to explore what I have to teach myself, my in-tuition.
When a struggle is obvious, it is easy to notice and take the time to explore what the struggle is really about. When my struggle is NOT obvious, it’s a whole different matter – I have to go looking for it, choosing to find struggle with the express purpose of exploring myself and seek what lurks within me. By doing so, I notice and test the assumptions I make.
Explicitly looking for inner struggles when they are not apparent gives me an opportunity to teach myself how to live well with myself. I give myself a chance to notice if I make decisions without struggle when there should be. As I reflect on the struggle of jumping over the surge channel in choose the right leap, I can imagine that we made our choice to jump too fast and confidently. Did we actually know that the rocks were not slippery? I can imagine myself making decisions fast to avoid struggle. That signals other struggles…
In the end, the better I know the patterns in how I operate, the better equipped I am to make decisions that serve me well. And when my decisions improve, I serve everyone around me better: my family, my neighbourhood, the organizations with which I work, my city, my region, my planet.
What does it take to really look at the nature of our struggles?
What are we telling ourselves that we haven’t heard yet?
What thresholds do we know – yet haven’t noticed yet?
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This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.
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