Are You ‘Stuck in the Mud’?

‘Stuck in the mud’ was a game I used to play when I was young; we’d all run around and if you got tagged by the one person who was ‘in’ then you had to stand still, with your legs akimbo as if you were stuck in the mud. Everyone else would be running around avoiding the ‘in’ person but also trying to save you – which they did by crawling quickly through your legs to free you. Round and around we went: stuck, unstuck, saving others. 

What a great metaphor for life. How often does something occur, externally, and you take it inside yourself, let it sit and fester, until something occurs to help you shake it off until it happens all over again?

We can find ourselves at any age standing alone, stuck in the mud, uncertain and sometimes in pain, not knowing where, or even how, to move. In this state of growing fear, we experience stuckness; with no space around us or in us, instead, everything becomes consumed by fear. 

How do we find the volition to move out of this stuckness, and how do we create space to move into? What we need is someone to help us. We need a hand to reach out and help pull us out to land back on safe ground.

As a Reiki practitioner, I find that being stuck, feeling stuck, are experiences that the philosophy and practices of the system of Reiki can help with. The helping hand can be the system of Reiki.

Back when I was a young Reiki mum with a child of the age to play ‘stuck in the mud’, I brought a technique to the table that I hoped would banish these feelings of stuckness – not only for myself but also for my child. 

They were just three little words, three wise little words, that I had picked up through my exposure to the system. You might think that these words were: “For Today Only” (the introduction to the Reiki Precepts) but they weren’t, although they certainly resonated within the Reiki Precepts. They weren’t “I Love You” either, but then again those three words never go astray. 

They were this, “Accept or Change”.

I would use them in conversation with my child.  A child that is stuck. A child that is whinging about being stuck. You know what it’s like when your child finds every option offered unacceptable and all they want to do is whine about it. Yet, by using the phrase “Accept or Change”, I taught my child that there is always a way out, a way forward if you like. You either accept the situation for what it is because it is liveable, or you accept that you have to make some changes as it is unliveable. Either way, we move into a deeper understanding of the role of acceptance in our lives.

Through the Japanese cultural influence of concepts such as mono no aware – the deep awareness of the impermanence of all things, the system of Reiki draws us into creating space for acceptance, and the ability to accept or change. This is the nesting ground for all Reiki precepts.

By chanting the Great Bright Light mantra of dai ko myo we sit in a vast open space of possibility. Our inner light shines outwards, everywhere existing as spaciousness. You cannot touch light, it is space! In that expansiveness, the grip of fear loosens and our perspective broadens. We begin to see change not as a threat, but as an opening to new beginnings.  

Revel in the humble qualities of a beginner as you learn that acceptance and acceptance of change offer unlimited opportunities to grow and shed old layers. In this way, we move into space, into our light and the light of the world, unafraid and ready to fully embrace all that life has in store.

Pema Chödrön said, “To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.”

Let’s pull our boots out of the mud and begin.