When I can do nothing.

In Steven Covey's, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he suggests we look for the 3rd alternative to solve problems. To move beyond the tried and true and see the problem as the solution, to look for answers outside the realm of where the problem lies and find solutions that involve more than just our limited thinking.

There is a Zen koan, "When you can do nothing, what can you do?"

It is in the realm of believing I can 'do nothing' that my answers come.

This is a month of memories for me. Five years ago, on May 21, one moment changed my life. At 9:14 am, two police officers walked into a room and arrested the man to whom I held myself captive with invisible bonds of terror. In that moment, my universe shifted. My status quo crumbled. There was nothing I could do to change what was happening. There was everything I could do to change how I perceived the events that had led up to my self-destruction, and everything I could do to change how I stepped out of that room and into my life today.

At the time, I couldn't see the gift his arrest represented. I could see that something was terribly, terribly wrong. I could see that I was broken, shattered into a thousand pieces. I could feel my pain. My sorrow. My horror at what had become of my life. And, I could feel the relief of knowing his physical body had been removed from my presence. In having him removed, I felt fear. Deep gut-wrenching fear. That fear held the door open. It held me open to the possibility of freedom from the past.

In those first moments and days of freedom, I couldn't feel the joy and happiness I would know today. I couldn't feel the love I know today. All I could feel was the realization that something had to change and it wasn't going to be the past.

In believing there was nothing I could do to change what had happened, I left myself free to experience what was happening then. In taking my eyes off what he had done to hurt me, I gave myself the freedom to feel my feelings about what had happened to me, without judging them, forcing them away, or contorting them into some other sense of being. In knowing there was nothing I could do to change the past, what he had done, or even what I had done, I let myself change in the moment from a woman who was abused, to a woman who was healing from abuse -- as best she could in that moment.

When I awoke from the horror of that relationship, I didn't have a roadmap that read, This way to healing. Healing was not a destination defined by signposts guiding me to a place I wanted to get to. Healing isn't a place. It is an idea, a concept, a bunch of feelings that add up to my life today. Healing continues to add value to my life when I focus on love and joy and laughter and let my emotions flow freely without falling into the belief I am my emotions. I am more than the sum of my emotions. I am like nothing I could imagine when I lived in fear.

What do I do when there's nothing I can do?

Open up to the no-thing that is staring me in the face, and ask myself, if I did know, what would I do?

In that question, my courage awakens to my inner knowing. In letting myself fall into the 'iffy' void of acknowledging that not knowing is the doorway to seeing answers beyond my known, I open myself up to doing something differently than I've done before. 'What if I did know?' draws me out of my fear-driven resistance to change into the possibility of seeing that change is possible, 'if' I'm willing to look for answers within me.

Thelma Box, founder of Choices, always tells trainees on the first day of seminar, "I don't have your answers. I only have questions. Tough questions. But they're the questions that will help you find your answers within you."

"I don't know," can only be answered with the question, "What if I did know? What would I do?" "I don't know," is my gateway to possibility. When I answer a question with "I don't know," I'm admitting to the possibility that whatever I do know, it's not the answer I'm looking for. It's my acknowledgement that thus far, nothing I've done has changed the situation. If, as I say, I want change, am I willing to look within me for my answers? What is my answer?

On May 21, 2003, I didn't know what I was going to do when the police removed Conrad and set me free. Freedom didn't feel that safe. It didn't feel that good. At the time, I did the only thing I could think of after I asked myself, What if.... I called my sister and asked for help.

Asking for help was outside my realm of possibilities until that morning when the world tilted and the pain of being an abused woman slid off into the sorrow of having been abused. Asking for help was not 'my way'. Asking for help admitted to weakness. It admitted to 'not knowing'.

Truth is, I didn't know. I didn't know I'd been abused. I didn't know I was lost. I didn't know what I was going to do.

In not knowing what to do, I did the only thing I could do. I asked for help.

In the five years since being given the miracle of my life, I have been blessed with the love and support of family and friends. I have been blessed with the gift of time and space to heal and live and love and grow into my beautiful life today. Today, I count my blessings and know they are greater than the sum total of that 4 year 9 month journey into hell. They are the total of a life lived learning and growing and becoming all I am meant to be when I live fearlessly in love with me and the world around me. I am blessed.

The question is: When you can do nothing, what can you do?