In systems of change, there are times when the current slows, and we find ourselves paused (or “stuck”) in the eddies: we sense both resistance and invitation.
Places of stuckness take many flavours, shapes and responses.
They feel like load, drag, slug, stormy weather.
Slow AND never really inert.
If we look closer, they just try to bend and contort for air and insight.
Here’s what I do with a place of stuckness:
I’m an optimist. I also love to play with futures and imagination.
In turbulent times like ours, uncertainty never disappears; it’s become heavy.
Sometimes frustration sharpens my awareness, because it all makes sense on paper, but I feel small and powerless in the face of the task to accomplish…
Meanwhile, hope and faith haven’t left me; they’ve just gone underground.
They’re present but inaccessible for now in their previous form.
Today, for example, I feel faithfully uncertain…
So, when I have workshops about tending to conflict, before rushing to fix anything, we start by naming our states of friction (or conflict, or mild tension), with honesty and humility.
We name the states we’re in because they are never neat.
They’re pregnant with stories of us.
They’re “adjacent”.
In this junction, our state can hold frustration (or something else) whilst retaining dignity too.
Do you recognise yourself in these adjacent states?
- Weary Steward (you are still – always? – tending, even when tired)
- Reluctant Navigator (you know the way exists, struggling to step)
- Held Practitioner (you might need holding as much as you offer it)
- Tethered Dreamer (hope is dangling somewhere, more like a theory in a drawer, not flowing)
- Paused Radical (your fire is banked, not extinguished)
- Sober Waiter (you’re not really passive, but you’re listening for timing)
- Irritated Carer (you care under strain, but you still care
- Grim Improviser (you make do without romance)
- Restless Holder (you’re unable to resolve, but unwilling to abandon)
Or maybe you have another adjacent way to be in that stuckness? What do you notice?
And how would you call it?
Hi, I’m Servane! 👋🏼
Drawing on 25 years in community building and systemic leadership, I love exploring how we can nurture more courageous, connected systems of change. A Thinking Partner and systemic team coach, I tend the spaces where conflict becomes curiosity, and futures-thinking turns into collective imagination. I guide boards and social innovators to rediscover the relational heartbeat of their work.
