Hard Hearts Keep Us Stuck

from the archives: Slaying Dragons

Have you ever reread a beloved book or watched a movie from “back in the day” and had a completely different experience with it? Quite often, unfortunately, things don’t age well, and I wish I’d left it alone. But other times, I’m blown away by what slipped right by me the first (or second or third) time through!

I kinda love this! The way content can reflect new understanding and shifts in my own thinking. It feels like evolution, and I find it incredibly satisfying.

Of course, revisiting SMP articles is always an interesting exercise for me. Sometimes, I’m, like, “Oh that’s good! Did I write that?!” (Yes, it’s true. I’d like to come across a bit more humble here and say, “haha, not really,” but that would be dishonest.) But other times, I’m like, “Oof! That’s not how I understand that anymore.” And honestly, this is just as—if not more—interesting to me than the articles that past-me impresses current-me with.

There’s a LOT of content here on the SMP. This Stack just celebrated its 3rd anniversary at the end of February and I’ve had a whole lot to say along the way. Not surprisingly, my understanding of things and my personal philosophy continue to develop and evolve.

Sooo, I’d like to play around with a new offering I’m calling, “from the archives” because it accomplishes several things:

1. It exposes new subscribers to the vast bank of concepts and strategies that might support their experience of navigating this wild and unexpected parenting trip while also helping you get to know me, Stoicmom, and my own journey through it.

2. I’ll have to develop myself in new ways. Typically, the way I roll through life is to just keep moving forward. Start fresh. (Walk away. Is this starting to sound like a little escapism? I suspect there a bit of truth to that.) Exercising the discipline to analyze and update previous content will be good for me, and will make more evident the growth that destabilizing circumstances can provide if we adopt a Stoic orientation.

3. Long time subscribers will be invited to review content and use it to measure their own evolution. So even if you’ve already read the article I dig up from the archives for this series, I encourage you to reread it and invite you to notice how your perspectives have shifted and if things resonate differently for you now.

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So, for this first visit to the archives, the current political climate inspired me to want to share Slaying Dragons again. (I feel very fortunate to not have to be immersed in the chaos on the daily. It feels pretty distant unless I go searching for news—not something I’m inclined to do, since, for me anyway, that’s a distraction from what I feel is my purpose.)

I think this one is as relevant as ever, but there is one aspect of it that I’d like to update, and offer a deepening of my understanding when it comes to relationships between certain emotions. Some emotional experiences land on a continuum of opposites, much like dark and light or soft and hard; easy and difficult—you get the picture. Examples of these include resentment and gratitude, or judgment and curiosity.

In this article, Slaying Dragons (linked below,) I imply that sad and happy are on a similar continuum by using sad as an synonym for unhappy. There was not a lot of thought that went into this word choice; I was just avoiding using the same word too many times and annoying my readers.

Since developing our emotional vocabulary and self-awareness is so important to our personal growth, I want to share what I’ve learned about the true relationship between sadness and “unhappy people”. Unhappy in this case is really meant to refer to people whose lives are unsatisfying and lack meaning. People who are generally discontent and are likely experiencing a sense of “stuckness.”

Stuckness is an indicator of being emotionally defended and unable to adapt. It’s actually our inability to allow sadness that will keep us stuck. If it seems things are just not working for us and we’re not going to get something we desperately want, we can’t move forward until we’re able to grieve our loss and let it go.

Photo by Chittima Stanmore on Unsplash

If our hearts aren’t soft, and we don’t feel safe to let our tears flow when faced with futility, we’re likely to find ourselves suspended in a state of frustration, clinging to that which we cannot have and feeling like a victim of our circumstances. Or we’ll use aggression and project our anger out onto the world in likely unproductive ways that tend to reinforce and exacerbate our feelings of frustration and victimhood.

For anyone who is truly interested in what it means to be human and how we can use this understanding to spread true peace in the world—which is the focus of this article that I’ve dug up from the recent archive (summer of 2024)—I think this update that can contribute to our emotional intelligence adds new layers of depth to the intended message.

So, maybe keep this relationship between sadness and a contented life aka “happy” in mind or return and review this section after reading this article that I’m resharing. I’ve also added an audio version for those who prefer to listen on the go.