What does it mean? It means ‘something I could never see myself doing.’ In this guise, the unthinkable binds stuckness. I can watch that guy over there getting away with what ‘I could never see myself doing,’ and just sit. Firm in my belief of what ‘I could never see myself doing,’ I’ll choose to do anything, anything but THAT!

Everyone else in the place might be able to imagine me doing what ‘I could never see myself doing,’ and even advise me to just get over it and do that one unthinkable thing, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Your natter only decreases my viscosity, encouraging me to feel ever stucker.

It’s not that I couldn’t physically just do that one unthinkable thing, it’s that my conscience can’t seem to let me. It’s no simple step to move away from my scrupulously nurtured self image. Who would I be then? I’m an old dog with old tricks, excuse me if I mistake my tricks for me.

The Tarot deck includes a Devil card. It might be a reminder that a full deck includes at least one unconscionable, that wild and crazy belongs, too. Anything I can’t see myself doing might require me to close my eyes tight sometimes and get on with doing it.

I’m learning to sometimes amend my definition of unthinkable by adding an ounce of possibility for difference. Instead of ‘something I could never see myself doing,’ I can sometimes add a little ‘until now’ on the end. ‘Something I could never see myself doing ... until now’ respects my old, hard-won identity without undermining it. And it transitions into a new story, one with the possibility of even becoming ‘something I formerly could never see myself doing.’

Stuck denies one fundamental fact of life, we are flow not stasis. It seems the nature of life to change, and my nature to resist changing. My identity can be like water or air, but I sometimes mistake it for a dam, then defend ‘myself’ right out of myself. But then some devil whispers in my ear, tempting me with fluidity again, if only I can imagine myself doing some little unthinkable thing.

One universal consultant’s trick, useful for unclogging most any relationship: After they’ve complained, explained, maligned, and profaned that one person who seems to have so convincingly ‘caused’ the problem, ask ‘em what that person said when they spoke with them about their complaints. You’ll get a first-hand view of someone wrestling with the unthinkable. Of course, they haven’t spoken with their nemesis, and they’ll have a hundred and one reasons why. You’ll see that they’ve never even considered talking with their ‘root cause’ because that’s ‘something they could never see themselves doing.’

As a good consultant, you might offer a kindly ‘yet,’ then, and see what happens. My Muse pulls this on me when she finds me stuck behind some boulder, out of the flow. It has never once occurred to be before she Yets me that all I really needed to do to get unstuck was simply let go. Unthinkable!

©2012 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Unstuck Stuck Consulting