The Hole
When you are paralysed with fear, self-pity, shame, or whatever your dark side is, and can’t get anything done – then that’s what I call the hole that you’re in.
After a few wonderful years in the late 60’s growing my hair long, doing peace signs (and really meaning them) and all the other things we did in those years, I wanted money and work. But I didn’t know where to turn or even start. I was stuck. I was in the hole.
Again in my thirties I had an acrimonious parting of the ways with my business partner. He went off to America and I was left with an office and a failing design business and I could hardly get out of bed, I was so down.
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Pre-YO! Sushi, and having burnt bridges in the TV and production business, I found my small amount of capital dwindling, no work and a heavy cloud. Thoughts of growing old loomed, I was a failure in my own eyes and I was in that hole again.
Two books got me out: “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” and “Healing the Shame that Binds You.” You don’t even have to buy them, the titles say it all. With help from others and a big own–up, I threw off the manacles of shame and fear as I realised that you only live once and life is just a game to be played to its full, one day at a time.
There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
To get out of the hole whether it be deep or shallow requires action, sometimes massive action. Go to it, fight through the pain – it will surely pass, all things do. A sharp look at how you see yourself, how others see you, and who you would like to be, leads to an understanding of who you are and where your destiny may lie.