This Yo!Dolphin!™ Client Says She Has Hit a Brick Wall And Wants Answers That Cut to the Chase
From a Yo!Dolphin! Worldview Survey client in the U.K.: “I have trawled through some of the pages on my worldview survey and was pleased to know I am on the right track. However, I am struggling so much with my life that I desperately need more than just uplifting words. Are you in the businesses of helping someone who has imagination, a big creative spirit and lots of energy but has come upon a massive brick wall? Any feedback would be gratefully received.”—Stymied Sojourner
Dear Stymied Sojourner:
There’s a lot more to your Yo!Dolphin! report than uplifting words. There are pointed, plain-spoken suggestions for doing something different in your report, too. A lot of suggestions. So keep reading.
And here are other observations I often offer to people who feel that their nose has just run smack into an immovable force:
1. Avoid being alone. In most cases, being with others brings its own kind of healing. Choose your companions with care, putting companions who care about you at the top of the list. But you don’t have to bare your soul and your troubles to everyone around you. Simply being with others even in a casual setting can help push back the night.
2. Keep things simple, at least for now. Don’t try to fix everything at once. And don’t spend a lot of time trying to forecast the future. Brick-wall times in our lives are when things come apart. Our first instinct is to attempt to mend them, using what we know, what we have left, what we are comfortable with. What we try may work immediately, but often it doesn’t. Right now, think survival, not perfection. Think one step at a time, not the whole race.
3. Assign a small part of yourself—that is, your conscious, rational, thinking being—to monitor what is being felt as opposed to what is being thought out. So much of what we think we think isn’t thought out at all. This is “felt” information that comes to us from deep in our brain. The “felt” stuff causes us to believe we know all kinds of stuff, even when we are staring at evidence that what we are sure we know is dead wrong! It is entirely possible that the need to challenge some of your “felt” knowledge is a major cause of your brick-wall feelings. Write down your suspicions about feelings that aren’t right, aren’t true, aren’t helpful.
4. Take care of yourself from the bottom of the food chain up. That is, look after your Carp nature first, then your Shark nature, and only then your Dolphin natures. If any of these personas of yours feels (there’s those feelings again!) threatened, it will sabotage realities for the personas “higher up.” Your Carp nature needs stability, family, security, the day-to-day stuff. Be sure it has it. Your Shark nature needs to feel some autonomy, some input into decision-making, a chance to win. Look for ways it can do so. Your higher Dolphin natures need you to heal, once and for all. And stay out of the shark pool. And grow more comfortable with changes in your life and world. But remember: ironically, a bold Dophin first requires a bold Shark and a bold Carp, all in the same brain/mind: yours!
5. Do things. Really do them. In the early stages of dolphin-hood, there is an Achilles heel quality to our thinking. As our brain/mind rushes to embrace an expanded new sense of enlightenment and empowerment, it fools us into thinking that all we need to do to make something true and real is to imagine that it is so. And that can be so very, very destructive. So misleading. So wasteful. So untrue. So personally dangerous. The world is mysterious, yes. The world is amazing, yes. But the world is still the world, and it has its ways and its rules, its priorities and its requirements. You will ignore them to your peril. If you want to walk on fire, you better be dead-sure that you first take the laws of physics into account.
6. Be careful of your gurus. Your personal coaches. Your therapists. Can they be useful? You bet. Can they also hurt you? They can. Use the caveat emptor rule of consumerism: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If your potential professional helper doesn’t appear to be walking the talk, she or he probably can’t help you do it either. So choose with care. Let the Dolphin part of your brain/mind make the choice by asking to see the evidence that the coach, therapist, clergyperson or whomever you are considering as a guide and sounding board seems … well, the best word I can think of is “competent.” People who are going to help you get your act together should pretty much have theirs together.
7. Understand that brick-wall times usually pass quickly, so we need to put them to good use. When you feel that your world has come apart, accept that it probably has. Who you are has once again become an open question. There will be no better time to ask yourself, “Is who I have been who I really want to be?” “Is who I have been who I was aiming to be?” “Is who I have been who I am really intended to be?” At first, such questions can seem impervious to answers. But they’ll come if you keep asking. And if it seems overpowering, remember that all you are doing is asking. You aren’t committing. Not yet. And if you choose not to, not ever. So don’t accept the fear. Embrace the spirit of the inquiry and see where it can lead.
8. You described yourself as “someone who has imagination, a big creative spirit and lots of energy.” Wow! That’s a lot of expectation to lay on a wounded, frightened soul. Let me suggest this: Be content for a while (for how long is your call) at being someone who doesn’t require that her imagination be on duty 24/7. Give it a break. Just be in the moment (I know that as a First Dolphin worldview user you know how to do this!). Forget changing the world, as big creative spirits are always see themselves doing. Find little things you can change now. Changes that can be useful to you. Changes that will bring you some stability, some solace, some leverage. And turn down the energy level. For the moment, run low-key, low voltage. Feel what it is like to let the universe run itself. Then, over time, ramp back up in all these areas to a point where it helps you feel confident, on purpose, ready to resume the journey at the pace and toward the goals you were created to pursue.
So what’s the first thing I’d suggest you do: Go eat. Not at home. Go out. Nourish yourself with good food, competently prepared. If you can find someone to share it with, do. If you can’t, then enjoy yourself as your own company. Be sure to do it in an exciting location. Why? Simply to remind yourself that there’s an amazing world out there. And that you are an amazing part of it. It is a world that never ceases to change. Hitting brick walls is merely a remainder that the world is moving on and that we don’t want to be left behind.
All best wishes to you!
