Spiritual Hamburger

What do you do when you’re feeling stuck and a little chewed up by the Universe?

I’ve devoted a lot of words in this space to the Wheel for the Year, and the centrality of change to what it means to follow a pagan path. Our Sabbats are designed to teach us about the power of change and the constancy of change and the desirability of change. One of the things I say often is that we either choose to dance on the Wheel as it turns or we can get ground up in the gears.

But what happens when you get stuck? What happens when you actually do get knocked down into the gears of the Wheel?

I’m feeling this one pretty personally right now for a lot of reasons. I got COVID right before Yule and more than two weeks later and I am still trying to get my energy back and failing miserably. I find myself at a place in my life where there are things that need to change and yet it’s hard to make those changes happen. I feel a little stuck right now. And so this question isn’t a hypothetical or a teaching prompt. It’s real to me. And I know I am not alone.

All around us is the sense that we are stuck. Stuck in a hamster wheel life where no matter how fast we run, we can’t seem to get to a place where we feel comfortable with our ability to make a living. We’re stuck in a feeling of loneliness and isolation, where we want to connect with our fellow humans but can’t seem to do it. We’re stuck in old habits, old thought patterns, old relationships where we just don’t know how to do it so it comes out differently.

Patterns and habits are comfortable. If we have a lot to do, or a lot on our minds, habits make things easier. When you wake up in the morning, the chances are pretty good that you do not brush your teeth a different way every day. The odds are high that you do most of your morning “get ready” routine mostly the same way every day. Take a shower, dry off, wash your face, brush your teeth, select some clothes, some jewelry, feed your cats, pack your lunch and then put your coat on and grab your keys and head for work. The consistency helps you to remember all the things you need to do. You don’t miss steps because you have some muscle memory of what comes next. And that’s a good thing.

But sometimes patterns are actually ruts. You can get so comfortable in the habits that your world starts to shrink. You stop encountering new people. You don't engage with new ideas or go to new places and see new things. And while a small world can feel very safe and protected, the truth is that humans actually do better when they are regularly engaging with the world in ways that expose them to new things, new ideas and new people. One of the things that is particularly important for those of us who are getting a little long in the tooth is to make sure we are continuing to be social and continuing to be exposed to new things and ideas and places. Often the decline in mental capabilities as one ages is accelerated if the person is isolated, or not getting enough social activity.

When we think about things that we want to jumpstart or change, our spiritual path doesn't always come to mind. Consistency and repetition is actually great when you're trying to engage in devotional practice, but there are moments when maybe you've become too set in your ways. When maybe you aren't challenging yourself enough, or doing your shadow work. You start to feel like you haven't really learned anything new, or worse yet, you start to feel like you know a lot and don't need to learn anything new.

And the thing about that is, the Universe is almost always trying to teach us something. It has, in fact, a nasty habit of forcing our hand if we aren’t learning our lessons. We often find that we are taught the same lesson over and over again, with increasingly painful consequences, if we don’t learn what we’re supposed to the first time and make the necessary changes. If you’ve experienced this (and most of us have with at least one aspect of our lives) you know that it doesn’t feel good.

Again, like I like to say, you can dance on the wheel or get ground up in the gears. But the one thing you will never be able to do is stop the Wheel of Life from turning.

But as I find myself in this space where for a brief moment I stopped dancing, because all the circumstances of my life made dancing well nigh impossible, I am forced to experience exactly that sensation — when the gears keep turning, and you can’t seem to manage the jumps and turns required, and so you drop into the gears and they start to shred and grind you up into little pieces. And you find yourself soft and pulpy and not very whole or happy. How the heck do you come back from that?

I’m sure the answer is (in typical Rule of 100 fashion) different for everyone. But I think the beginning is potentially the same — stop judging yourself for the fact of where you are. There are all sorts of reasons why someone falls off the wheel and gets pulverized, and some of those reasons may in fact be your fault. But at this moment where you’re trying to start the countervailing motion to get back in the game, why you are where you are is secondary to the recognizing the reality of where you are. Because the gears are gonna keep rolling. The wheel hasn’t stopped just because you realized your need to get back on it. It’s still churning away, still pulping your ass.

But here’s the weird part — as much as we don’t like the feeling, as much as it’s not what we ever seek for ourselves, there is a time and a place for being in this state of pulverized mess. There is actually some value in occasionally being ground up into spiritual hamburger. Arriving at that place isn’t necessarily a bad thing that you need to berate yourself for.

Photo by Joshua Kantarges on Unsplash

I know that sounds weird, but stay with me for a minute. When we’ve jam-packed our lives with habits and ways of thinking and doing and obligations, of course there is no room for anything new to make it’s way in. And sometimes we are so wrapped up in our ways of doing and thinking, that nothing short of being pulverized is going to break that jammed up life open. When you are spiritual hamburger, you have the opportunity to mold yourself anew  — to take the shreds and shards the Wheel’s grinding left you with and think consciously about how you might want to build back differently the next time.

In fact, if you want to take a moment, while you’re here in pieces, having been ground up by the Wheel, to just take an inventory of what you’ve got, it’s not out of line.

What you want to avoid, however, is judging what you’re finding too harshly. When life grinds us down, it’s tempting to add cruel judgement to the pile. We all have that soundtrack in our head that we like to play at these key moments — the one that tells us that we deserved to get crushed, that we’re incompetent or stupid or terrible or whatever false narrative we’ve been taught to saddle ourselves with. And that soundtrack is poison. And more importantly, it’s unnecessary bullshit. It’s not gonna help anything. It’s just going to take up time and bandwidth better used elsewhere. Consciously turn it off and chuck it out the window.

In fact, if you’re going to stay here in spiritual hamburgerland for a while, rather than judge your presence in this space, or the shards of yourself that you’ve been left with, you should take each piece you find an bestow it with a little love and admiration. After all, the shards are survivors. They are the stubborn little buggers of your spirit that wouldn’t break under pressure. They deserve your attention, your praise, and your care and nurturing. Take a minute and acknowledge that while you might be spiritual hamburger right now, that there’s some Grade A tasty chuck, no doubt about it.

Of course, some of the things that got pulverized needed to be. They were icky and gristly and no one wants them. You can be honest about things without being judgmental and cruel. In fact, it’s okay to love on the bad bits a little before tossing them away. Realize that nothing that is in your ground up self is there by accident. At some point you felt like you needed that shit. Just like that old rock you picked up by the creek when you were out and about in the woods as a child, at the time it felt wholly necessary to your being. You simply couldn’t not slip it in your pocket and carry it with you. And when you find it 3 days later, you can’t even remember why you thought it was so special in the first place. Now it’s just a weight in your pocket. Most of the things that no longer serve us or may actually be harming us are usually things we thought we needed at one point. And so we should love on the part of ourself that was looking for something and maybe didn’t find the right answer, because that part of ourself probably still needs comfort and healing.

As much as the pressure is on because the Wheel is turning, and dammit, you don’t want to miss anything or be out of it, be spiritual hamburger for as long as you need to be. Inspect that Prime Grade A chuck for as long as you need to before declaring it fit for purpose. Inventory and love on the resilient bits. Acknowledge and get rid of the bad bits. But above all, be okay with being bits. It’s not a state you need to be ashamed of. All the best people you know have had this moment, and even if it’s your first time here, trust and believe it won’t be your last.

And when you are good and ready to stop being hamburger, get out of the jaws of the Wheel. Stop the shredding. Get back on the Wheel and dancing, even if the only thing you can manage is a halting, ridiculous shuffle. You’re not here to be the next winner on So You Think You Can Dance. Your goal is to get up and get back in the game. This dance isn’t for anyone else but you, and it doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to keep you moving in a positive way. There will be time once you are back in the swing to look at what happened, and make the changes so you never end up falling off the Wheel for the same reason twice. And it’s also a pretty sure bet that at some point, no matter how well you are dancing, you’ll slip. You’ll fall. You’ll drop into the gears of the Wheel and find yourself back in hamburgerland. Only this time, you’ll be better prepared for the work you need to do here. It’s a Wheel. It turns. It will deliver you to places you’ve been before. And each time, you’ll hopefully do better.

Blessed be, y’all.