Breakthrough, or Break Down?

With rare exceptions, we seem to struggle in our desire to break through. Yet, exactly what are we trying to break through?

Typically, it’s about our desire to change or to become unstuck. The groove of old thinking, feeling, and the rut of old behavior become deeply embedded. The older we get, the more anxious we may become that we won’t be able to break free from the entrenchment of the “familiar zone.”

Somewhere beyond the limitations of the familiar lies the new terrain we imagine we’d like to experience. This desired place may be specific or general, but it holds the promise of something we yearn for.

This is the promised land of the breakthrough.

We may come to fear that the absence of change assures not only sameness and stagnation, but potentially worse. When we don’t assimilate opportunities for growth, we may indeed break down.

Resistance to change rigidifies our life experience and we lose our capacity for vitality. When we remain mired in the familiar zone, we stagnate. This stagnation ultimately leads to our devolving or breaking down.

We ultimately have a choice: break through and embrace our personal evolution, or coast in the comfort zone and begin the withering that leads toward our breaking down.

A break down needn’t be a psychological or emotional disaster, or a profound dysfunction. It may be far more subtle but just as insidious. For the predictability of life without growth may precipitate a dulled, if not depressing, experience.

Humans thrive through the mechanism of resilience, as do our relationships.

The word resilience should not suggest the ability to ward off mishaps and struggles, but to integrate them into our being. Challenges to our stability are opportunities in disguise. Crisis ordinarily presents an opportunity. Embracing uncertainty and discomfort may very well usher in the long-awaited breakthrough.

We need to thrive, not just survive.

Learn more about marriage counselor, psychotherapist, author, podcaster and speaker Mel Schwartz at melschwartz.com.