Between a Rock and a Hard Place
I love being a fur baby mom. My sweetie is 20 pounds of minibernadoodle, 30 pounds of fur, and an off the scales amount of curiosity. Millie has never encountered a person or object she didn’t want to sniff, taste, or explore. Our walks are full of adventure with excitement around every corner.
This afternoon was one of those spring days that magically appears in the middle of winter. They are few and far between, giving the perfect excuse to procrastinate with the To Do list. Millie leads on these days. Spending time with her as she follows her nose and her curiosity teaches me to slow down, follow my own nose and curiosity, be open to what I would normally pass by.
Today’s walk was filled with sensory treasure for Millie and irony for me. I’ve lived in this area for about 5 years. Just outside of our neighborhood is a small natural area with grass, trees, shaded pathways. It’s peaceful, safe for puppy exploration, and takes on a new look as the seasons gently roll from one to the next. On average we walk through this area once a day. Some days not at all, other days twice if the zoomies are particularly active. Millie wanders through nature, I wander through my thoughts, and we both get fresh air and sunshine. She returns home ready to nap and I return home refreshed and with a clear mind and focus for the remainder of the day. What’s important about all this?
5 years.
5 years of walking through this small natural area. 5 years of the same trees, same bushes, same cycle of fresh pine needles every two months, 5 years of the grass being mowed every Wednesday. 5 years of walking through this area to process my thoughts and clear my head.
5 years of walking past this one tree that I never really saw until today.
As we walked, Millie caught a scent in the breeze and paused to sniff around this tree. I waited patiently as she satisfied her curiosity. Patiently is probably stretching the truth slightly. I mostly stopped and kicked around the leaves so they wouldn’t land on her and get stuck in her fur. The running joke is she carries them home in her fur since she doesn’t have pockets. As I moved the leaves, I noticed a small rock. Knowing Millie’s knack for indiscriminate swallowing of anything that will fit in her mouth, I used the toe of my shoe to kick a small rock away from her.
Except the rock didn’t budge. Naturally, I had to kick it again, right? Still, it didn’t budge.
With my curiosity now rivaling Millie’s, I bent over for a closer look. The rock was atop an exposed root of the tree whose leaves I was kicking away. The was the tree that I had never truly noticed until now.
But the rock wasn’t atop the root of this tree- it was embedded in it. Embedded so deeply and firmly that it wouldn’t budge no matter how I kicked and prodded. And then I burst into laughter at the irony-
The tree root was genuinely, authentically, truly between a rock and a hard place.
Oh my gosh- how I adore these moments when the universe lies in wait to poke fun at me and have a grand laugh at my expense! I gave up fighting these moments years ago. Much easier and more fun to laugh and play along.
I ran my fingers along the root. Partially exposed, the root rose above the soil as if it had come up for a breath of much needed air before disappearing again into the firm soil to grow more deeply underground in support of fulfilling the tree’s needs for nutrients, water, and stability. But that root’s journey above ground contained an unexpected moment, a hurdle which blocked it from it’s anticipated path. An unexpected hurdle created a forced choice for that root- either stop growing or find another path forward. This is important because the root is a part of something bigger than itself; it is a part of a family. This family is made of leaves and branches and roots, but it’s a family nonetheless. Each member of that tree family is reliant upon the other members to help foster mutual growth through supporting the basic needs of one another. And so that root made the choice to sneak into the gaps between the rock and the firm soil and continue its growth there. In doing so the root twisted and turned, taking on a gnarly appearance. The root also wrapped itself around the rock so firmly that the rock was taken into the tree family to forever exist as the cause of the twisted root.
Back to the irony about all this.
The first irony is the years I spent walking past and over that root as I considered decisions big and small, untangled and examined feelings and thoughts, determined next steps in how to move forward. Moment after moment of walking past and over a root stuck between a rock and a hard place while I was also stuck between a rock and a hard place.
The second ironic moment is how similar this is to life. Living creatures, whether they are trees or people, have basic needs that drive how each day is lived and experienced. As humans we have basic needs for food, shelter, and safety. That’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. In my work with people, we generally focus on the need for emotional safety, how it manifests itself in physical sensations, what is blocking feeling safe, and learning how to make healthy decisions in continuing to grow and move forward.
That tree root is us, whether single or in a committed relationship. It’s how most of us move through our emotional lives. We have a need that is blocked: a parent or partner who is emotionally unavailable; friendships, romantic relationships, or parent/child relationships that are codependent, filled instead with us meeting their needs and ours going ignored and tossed aside; even the relationship with ourselves in which we self-shame our needs for being too much to ask to be met. Those are the rocks that we encounter. We face that same forced choice to either stop growing and remain emotionally blocked or to find a new path forward.
That brings me to the third irony. Growing around the rock as the root did is both healthy and unhealthy for us when it occurs in our relationship with ourselves and/or others. The growth is healthy in how we are continuing to move forward instead of just stopping and becoming stuck in indecision, as well as believing deeply enough in the worth of our needs to look for other options or paths to try. Yet it’s unhealthy in how the growth twists and turns and in a gnarly manner molds itself into around the behavior, the rock, that is causing the block. This brings the rock into the relationship to become a permanent work around in getting our needs met. Rather than moving the rock out of the way, the root accepted the rock’s presence and took the rock in. Within our relationships it represents how we have allowed an unhealthy behavior to have a permanent place in the relationship, how the relationship patterns will twist and turn in gnarly configurations to conform to the unhealthy behavior rather than facing the problem and moving it out of the way. We can go for 5 years, perhaps even longer, without noticing the rock just as I had done.
I see this often with couples as they fight. Their rocks are Gottman’s 4 Horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling), the fight against being vulnerable, the lack of willingness to hold themselves accountable for their behavior choices, not valuing the soothing that comes from giving and receiving apologies with validation, empathy, and compassion.
I see this in individuals, too. These rocks often make themselves known through the self-shaming and judgmental ways in which we speak to ourselves, how we devalue ourselves by putting others above us, how we settle for less than what we deeply want and need because we don’t view ourselves as worth it.
Rocks are hard and standing face-to-face (or toe in my case!) against the rock in our relationships takes courage. This small rock in one root of the large tree isn’t a big deal for the tree. It has plenty of other roots to meet its needs. But we aren’t trees, my friends. Over time that small rock in our relationships begins to feel like a massive boulder, impossible to remove without leaving an emotional scar.
What are the rocks in your relationship with yourself? With your friends, family, romantic partner? Which rocks would you like to move? Find a great therapist with a big shovel and start digging, my friends – you are worth it!
As always,
Embrace your best self! Anne