I invite you now to find a comfortable position,
Whether sitting or lying down,
And when you're there,
Gently close your eyes or soften your gaze.
And we're going to take a long,
Slow breath in.
Sending that breath deep down into your belly.
And now exhale gently.
Let's take another breath like that.
Cleansing,
Slow,
Letting go of any tightness or tension you may be carrying with your next out breath.
Now,
Allow your breath to return to its natural rhythm.
Let your body soften a little bit more,
Let your thoughts settle and allow yourself to arrive fully in this moment,
In your body and in the space.
For the next few minutes,
You are safe,
You are held and together we're going to gently explore this feeling of stuckness and what it might be asking of you with the help of the hanged man.
Now in your mind's eye,
I want you to imagine a figure suspended in the air.
A man hanging upside down by one foot,
Gently swaying in the breeze.
His arms are behind his back,
His free leg bent,
Forming a kind of triangle of stillness.
This is the hanged man.
He is not in danger,
He is not in pain,
But he is stuck.
And he's been here for a while.
Long enough that frustration now lines his face.
Long enough that he believes he should have already released himself and berates himself daily for not having figured out how to do so.
You watch him as he begins to struggle,
Tugging against the rope around his ankle,
Trying to free himself through force,
Through effort,
Through sheer will and determination,
But he isn't going anywhere,
Which only adds to his despair.
It appears that the more he fights his position,
The tighter the rope becomes around his ankle.
The more desperate his movements,
The more drained he becomes,
His futile attempts for release leaving him feeling utterly hopeless.
You observe him sweating,
Breathless,
Caught between a desire to break free and the undeniable truth he cannot free himself like this.
And so,
You wonder,
What if,
Instead of struggling and fighting his situation,
He simply paused?
You close your eyes for a moment and imagine what the world must look like from his perspective.
You feel the tension of hanging here,
The confusion,
The powerlessness,
The urge to resist,
To break free,
To fix this fast,
But then,
You stop.
You stop resisting.
You stop trying to escape.
You accept that for this moment,
You are where you find yourself,
In suspension.
And in that quiet act of surrendering,
You notice something does begin to shift.
The breath deepens,
The muscles soften,
And the mind stops searching frantically for a way out and instead begins to simply observe.
What does this new perspective offer?
You see the world inverted,
But instead of chaos,
You begin to notice beauty in the unfamiliar,
Details you hadn't had the spaciousness to see before,
Patterns,
Possibilities.
And in that stillness,
A new kind of clarity begins to take root.
Insight starts to grow.
You realize this isn't a punishment.
This isn't failure.
This isn't a result of not doing enough or not being good enough.
This is simply a pause in your story,
A short rest.
This is suspension with purpose.
This space and stillness holds a gift if we allow it to.
A moment to pause.
A moment to reassess.
A moment to listen in.
An opportunity to make your next choice not from fear or impulse or habit,
But from insight,
Wisdom,
Intention.
From a truth you have not yet come to realize.
As you rest here,
Ask yourself,
What am I rushing to move through that might actually need more reflection,
More time to grow into something new?
What clarity can only arise when I stop trying to fix,
Solve or escape,
And instead surrender?
How might this stuckness actually be serving me,
Protecting me,
Slowing me down in order to give me the time and space required to choose the path ahead more wisely?
The rope will release in time.
The next step will become clear,
But for now,
Your only job is to listen.
When you're ready to say goodbye to the hanged man,
Begin to bring your awareness back to your body in this present moment.
Back to the gentle rhythm of your breath,
The rise and fall of your belly or your chest.
Notice where your body meets what is rising to hold it,
The ground,
The back of a chair.
And I'm going to invite you to gently wiggle your fingers and your toes,
Roll your shoulders or have a gentle stretch if that feels good too.
And then softly flutter your eyes open.
Coming back to the space,
Back to yourself,
Back to the here and now.
But with this new understanding,
You've gained from your time spent with the hanged man.
And as we draw to a close,
I really want to thank you for taking time to sit with yourself and listen in in this way we have done today.
To honour where you find yourself at this time,
As opposed to trying to wrestle with it or deny it in some way.
How might this feeling or experience of stuckness be of service to you?
Go gently today,
Take care and I look forward to being with you again soon.
