Stuck Between Four Walls. But Free to Be Yourself
I took two weeks off for a writing retreat. I stayed home, between my own four walls.
At times I felt sheltered by those walls, in my own comfortable space with all the books and snacks I needed to support me. But at other times I was bouncing between the four walls in my mind, caught in a frenzy of confusion, fog, too much effort and striving.
It was the first time I’d done something like that and it has taught me few things I wanted share.
Writing is just like living life.
The difference is that life has a language of its own and writing is always trying to make something palpable of the ineffable. It’s through the experience of writing that I’ve deepened the freedom to be myself between the walls, whatever they are made of.
I set myself the target to finish the revision of the book and publish by the end of the year.As I started deepening into the editing—sifting words, clothing and unclothing ideas, sucking out inspirations like noodles or girdling the chapters together—I learned how long it would really take to finish this phase.
And I had to let go of … my pride.
It’s not the objectives and the deadlines that we find difficult to let go of, but the vision of how we would look in the eyes of those we seek for admiration when we say ‘I did that’.
That I understood only after I had taken the time to reflect, inquire and explore into the depth of my beingness, as I’ve been doing and teaching others to do for the past 15 years. And when I have I was able to let go.
And once I let go, like a peony loosing its leaves, I was more enchanted by what the process yields than by marching ahead.
Letting go is not something you will into doing but a movement you invoke into being.
The courage to move from stuckness
It takes courage to get up and leave when you’re stuck; To say to yourself ‘it’s not working, I can’t make a decision / I don’t know how to make the next move’, and instead of pressing the accelerator when you’re already on soft sand, to get up and walk. Literally.
Walking and writing have been married by writers and poets since the birth of the written word. While we get enchanted by ‘trying just once more’, by making ‘just a bit more effort’, “perhaps the truth”, as the poet Wallace Stevens said, “depends on a walk around the lake”.
Stuckness, an experience we’re all too familiar with, is as true as a mirage in the desert. Stuck is the mind that pushes for more effort when it’s time to let go. Stuck is the ego that holds on to a landscape that has inevitably changed. And to embody this all you need is to get up on your feet and start moving.
Seeking true connection in a disconnected world
Many of us are stuck between four walls now not out of choice. When choice is absent we get easily stuck between the inner walls of our resistance.
As part of the retreat I had no communication with the “outside” world and that included social media.
Surprisingly, it was much easier than I expected.
I didn’t miss the feeling of losing myself as soon as I log in (what did I want to do? Who am I? what’s my name??). I didn’t miss being pushed to the margins by an algorithm (yes, I do care for “likes”, a flattened expression to express your appreciation for a work-from-the-heart).
But after a week I started missing some people. So I’m not sure yet how to separate between the two, the technology and the people, yet I’m sure that the answers will come with time.
Lastly,
If you feel incomplete
It’s probably kindness
That’s missing from the way
You look at yourself.
Before you deem your creation, dreams, aspirations or yourself as unfit, let them live.
Let them bathe in the haze of kindness, the embrace that all little beings attract, and then, and only then, decide how you want to reshape what you’re looking at.
It’s not only that we look at changes as we change,
but that the gaze of love melts all walls into a limitless horizon.
I’d like to invite you to join me in this delicious journey of writing and publishing this book—Healing the mother wound, stepping into your wholeness.
You can subscribe to the news to receive updates on the progress and process, to help shape it and enjoy some early treats.

Photo byJonathan BorbaonUnsplash
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