This week I met a man named Jason. We got to discuss in our careers and he said he was feeling quite lonely in his. He is surrounded by a great group of people, but they are all going in what feels for him a worn out direction. He has lately attended several events that make him feel excited and alive again, and wants to share those experiences with his friends. But he finds that that isn’t possible. They simply are not in the same place in life to be able to conceptualize what is lighting Jason up.
As we talked, I was reminded of another friend who recently went on a Vipassana retreat. For ten days, he did not speak and looked no one in the eye. This constant meditation and silence released his mind to play with new ideas and experiences that otherwise had lain dormant due to the noise of life. He formulated plans for changing his life, but after his return, he backslid to old habits.
This is a common phenomenon. Think of your life in a shape. It could be a rhombus, an oval, maybe a trapezoid. Everything in your life holds you in that exact shape. All of your belongings, your career, the people around you, even the way your house is organized, all these things go together to hold that shape. Let’s explore how it works (and how to break it).
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