The way we handle obstacles in our lives can serve as a window of insight into our self-esteem, our strength, the level of our ability to grow through past conflicts, and our connection to our purpose.
When faced with an obstacle such as metaphorically walking along a path and then almost running into a wall, appropriate Spring energy, according to Chinese Medicine, would be to gain all available information about the situation (i.e. hardness of the wall, if we can go over, around, under it, knock it down or go down another path). We would then take decisive action towards this new plan based on all information gained.
Healthy Spring energy empowers us with flexibility, perspective, and informed decision making, to be able to always reach our ultimate goal.
However, much like Spring outside (especially this particular year!) seems out of the ordinary and a bit compromised, so might our individual Spring energy. With compromised Spring energy, the same situation of running up against this wall could play out in several ways. One way is that we throw ourselves up against the wall continuously attempting to knock the wall down. While showing great internal strength, this could also signify deep anger at some obstacle in the past that has not been let go of, that this present wall now represents. By taking a step back, we can see how this current situation may be similar to our past experiences. We can look and see what action can be taken so the outcome and journey can be different, rather than forcing a situation and ending up with possibly the same dead-end result or struggle. Another way that we may view the wall is that it is impenetrable and there is no use going forward. In this scenario, we can look at how many times we have let obstacles that have presented themselves to us take over our own inner strength and purpose.
I encourage you to take a look at how you handle obstacles in your own life and see where acknowledging new perspectives could be of benefit!