The feeling of being at the edge.

Have you ever stood right on the edge of a steep slope and looked around on the vastness in front of you? There’s a feeling of abundance and a bit of fear usually, at least for me. Seeing so many possibilities, and yet being afraid to fall down.

I imagine breakthroughs to be like that, only with some way of getting out over the steep. Still looking dangerous, still looking abundant.

I’ve had the feeling of there being a door to that steep. Standing just two steps behind it, but with some kind of door standing locked in between me and the breakthrough. It’s frustrating. And assuring at the same time.

Despite not knowing the breakthrough, not even knowing what it’s going to be about or how to get through the door, I know it’s there. I know the door is there, and I know there’s going to be something amazing on the other side.

My boss had a bad day the other week, where it was pretty obvious nothing was going his way. There had been some struggles too early in the day, and he was pretty much taken aback by it.

And his wife said something that didn’t help him at all, but that resonated and stayed with me. She said:

Well, we’ve both learned that we’re working through the problems, we don’t run from them.

I don’t know why that resonated so heavily with me, but it’s stayed with me for the past couple of days. If I’m having a bad day, I work through it. I do what I need to do, and I try to take care of my body as well. Doing the things that I know will make the situation better.

I’ve encountered the opposite quite a lot the past days as well. I’m working with a kid assigned to me by the social services, because he didn’t go to school. Now, he has a school that he likes, but he still won’t go there. He’s been expressing suicidal thoughts and he’s in general quite depressed.

His default mindset in all of this is that when he feels bad, he’ll stay home from school. And in this case, that’s the exact opposite of what he needs. He needs fresh air, a social context and he needs routines to stick by.

That’s the wonder of working through your problems. That they magically disappear, or just all of a sudden seem far less of a big deal.

And, at the same time, there’s the aspect of being rather than doing in all of this. Sometimes, what you need is to take a step back from that feeling of breakthrough, and just be with it. Not to work harder, not to do more things, not to do any different things. Just be with it. That might be just as hard.