A close friend struggles with whether to close the business he has run for many years. Someone else feels a great urge to leave her marriage while hoping never to do so.
At the height of the COVID lockdowns, I attended a webinar led by a man who dispenses advice about organizational change. At one point during the meeting, he claimed, “I am a tolerant man. The only thing I cannot abide is ambivalence.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that—he had been speaking in generalities. The remark stayed with me long after the talk, hanging around like a cryptic motto. I imagined he meant he disdained the indecisive or people who shrug off the state of the world.
Our culture applauds the Just Do It attitude, making stuckness seem shameful. That indictment directs a hot needle into the exact spot where a stuck person happens to hurt most.
I suspected the man hosting the webinar confused ambivalence with indifference. Shall we stay in or go out? I don’t mind; I’m ambivalent. It’s a common mistake, but the ambivalent are far from indifferent. It’s not that they don’t mind, it’s that they mind a great deal about two things at once. Ambivalence entails a sometimes fierce crosswind of forces. The word stems from the Latin ambi (on both sides) and valentia (strength).
Writing in the 1960s, the German psychoanalyst Fritz Reimann set out a pair of antinomies—statements that are true yet contradictory.
- People need to belong and have autonomy.
- We cling to constancy and pray things will change.
These opposing needs reveal the implicit wisdom of stuckness: it’s best to move forward with some sense of safety; ideally we can express who we really are without losing our friends.
The philosopher Andrew Taggart views stuckness as a failure of imagination, not volition. Maybe. I regard life-stuckness as more a failure of surrender, of squirming too much against, resisting what we must accept: that we need two things at once.
I think we’d be better off sometimes if we told ourselves:
Don’t just do something, stand there.
Allow. Accept. Whenever I have managed to give in and let go, both the push and the pull relax. This loosens the knot, and I find my way through.
All this is not to say that stuckness is a desirable state, only that the way out starts with surrender. Long term stuckness depletes the spirit. It depresses the mind, then the soul. But it’s the necessary ebb in our flow. The place where we pause, gather our wisdom, that deeper knowing which understands that in order to live we must grow.
***
I’d love you to follow my blog.
antidotes 
8 responses to “the wisdom of stuckness”
Nathalie, thank you. I love this week’s word and your exposition on it. Also love relearning the original meaning of ambivalence. It’s a tough time to hold 2 views strongly and simultaneously, but isn’t this also a sign of maturity? The pause before we act could be called stuckness and if you are of a mindful bent it could be called sacred pause. The first American president George Washington was more powerful for what he did NOT do than what he did do. I’ve always loved that. Thanks again for your insights.
LikeLike
The sacred pause! 😊😊 xx
LikeLike
I love this post, and what a sentence – “That indictment directs a hot needle into the exact spot where a stuck person happens to hurt most.” Whenever I’m inhabiting the uncomfortable unknown space between stillness / action, hope / despair, etc. and trying to reconcile what I feel, I am often told “move on” by others who don’t want to go there or hear it. This phrase has always bothered me, as it denies the real lived experience inside our hearts and souls, and how valuable it is to stay in there for a time to understand ourselves better, and then to move through it with some knowing. Thank you for bringing light to another important and nuanced area of our lives. x
LikeLiked by 1 person
I too know how long one can stay in-between!! Thank you for reading my blog and your thoughts and comments xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Nathalie, for this thought provoking blog. There is a collective, societal “stuckness” that feeds into the individual “stuckness” and feeds back to the collective “stuckness”; and the break in that cycle can come from the “ebb” by turning down the volume, the meditation and re-centering, before rejoining the fun of humanity’s merry-go-round:) Patrick
LikeLike
Couldn’t agree more and I do think that in our lifetime, especially it seems this last decade, the collective stuckness is a constant reminder of the futility of too polarised choices — and that it’s our duty to do all we can to inject quietude and lightness and joy into the mix — thanks for reading my blog 😎
LikeLike
Am living with so much ambi-valence. In the true sense of the roots. Totally. Thanks for articulating it.
LikeLike
It doesn’t sound like loads of fun xx but no doubt unavoidable x
LikeLike