Have you ever had the experience of starting something that gives you get great energy, or insight, or guidance and then finding, maybe years later, that you are still doing the thing and it just feels empty? Or worse, it starts to feel like a burden, or something toxic? I have, and it is hard to let go of something that was at first so nourishing but is no longer what our body, mind, or spirit need. The biggest challenge is perhaps learning how to identify the difference between not being in the mood for a particular practice or exercise, and that practice no longer being something that is helping you to grow. Maybe it’s obvious to you, but it has taken me a while to realize that just like other supplements, the spiritual vitamins I need at one point in my life may not be what I need in another.

I do want to say, rather strongly, that I don’t think we should treat spiritual exercises, or maybe even actual exercises as a buffet where we take a little of this and that and don’t commit to much of anything. When we start something new we need to give it time to work on us and through us and past the resistance. But we also need to know ourselves enough to identify when that thing has become harmful rather than helpful. Many years ago now I friend recommended a particular daily devotional they thought I would like, and boy did I ever. It opened up a whole new path for me spiritually, helped to grow my prayer practice, and introduces me to a number of teachers that have truly transformed much of my life.

But in the last two years it has started to change, and I am not the same person I was, and I read it every day partially because it is a habit and I am afraid of what will happen to the structure of my spiritual exercises if I don’t, and partially because I am longing for it to be what it was. It still has some wonderful elements that delight me when I find them. I am confident that it has much to offer for many people, yet three or four of the days each week I feel deflated and defeated after I read it. Many of the contributors have changed, some of the structure is more didactic, less contemplative. That’s fine of course, it just might be that it is not fine for me.

How long do we try before we say, “well I think I need to move on?” How many times do we pray, “God is it me? What would you have me learn here?” before we believe that the answer is, ‘you need to learn how to let go.’

Change is uncomfortable, it is unfamiliar, unpredictable, and it is what we need to do when we get stuck in a place that is holding us back from where we need to go. Whatever we do that is new is going to feel strange, the thing we miss we are going to mourn, and usually when we start out to somewhere new we can’t imagine the destination so we give up before we get there. What I tell my spiritual directees is that the need to give a practice forty days before judging it, but after forty days it is okay to say, ‘what I learned was that I don’t resonate with this practice and here is why.’

We have to allow ourselves to get unstuck and to go through that discomfort if we want to get on to where it is we need to be next. I am doing that myself right now and I am feeling a little sad about letting go of something that I loved dearly for a time, but I am also a little excited about all of the things out there that I am going to have space to learn from. Both are true. I’m moving carefully, I am asking for God’s guidance, and I am learning to listen in new ways. Where can you get unstuck in this season of your life?

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