There Are Always Options--Even When You Lock Yourself in a Barn on New Year's Day

The author, Christiane Northrup, said this: “Our souls design many potent wake-up calls to get our attention back on track.” As it turned out, it only took one potent wake-up call for me to figure out how to extricate myself from any situation. Because everything I needed to know about finding my way out of any situation I learned by locking myself in a barn on New Years Day, 2005!

I’m going to begin by sharing with you a story from one of my favorite TV shows, “The West Wing.” Leo McGarry tells Josh Lyman this story.

This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, “Hey you. Can you help me out?” The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.

Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, “Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?” The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole, and moves on.

Then a friend walks by. “Hey Joe, it’s me, can you help me out?” And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, “Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.” The friend says, “Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.”

I don’t know about you, but I have to admit that I’ve fallen into a hole with steep walls and no obvious way out more than a few times in my life.

Now I’m a business process engineer by profession, which means that it’s my job to help companies figure out how to scale their own steep walls of inefficiency and falling profits. How to find a way out of any mess, and turn that mess into a success.

And, over the years, I figured out how to apply what I’ve learned as a process engineer in the corporate world to my own life, to get out of any hole I’ve fallen into.

So are you like me? Have you ever found yourself in a steep hole and couldn’t figure out a Way Out?

Well move over! Today I’m going to jump down into that deep hole with you and show you the way out.

Today, you’ll learn a simple three-step cure for curing what I call The No Way Out Syndrome once and for all! It’s your personal roadmap to seeing the way out of any hole you might have fallen into, scaling those steep walls, and finally climbing out.

So, how and when did I find this amazing cure?

January 1, 2005.

A day of possibilities. We close the door on the past year. We look forward to the coming year.

And so it was with me in 2005.

I began the day by closing the door, not only on the past year, but on the last 20 years of my life as well. I was packing up the rest of the things that belonged to my about-to-be ex-husband who had moved out two months before.

And I was looking forward to the coming year, and the rest of my life, with a little fear but also with lots of hope and excitement!

I had been packing up my husband’s things for several weeks. And, whenever I had a few boxes for him to pick up, I’d leave them down in the barn so he could retrieve them when I was at work. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say.

On this day, New Years Day, 2005, I packed up the rest of his tools, loaded the toolbox and the dogs into the car, and drove down to the barn, which is about 2 acres behind my house, and about 3 acres away from my nearest neighbor’s house.

Let’s be clear about one thing: to call this structure a “barn” is probably a stretch. It’s really just a big storage shed. The walls and the doors are just plywood boards that are 4 feet wide and 8 feet high. The roof is corrugated metal tacked onto the top of the plywood walls.

I don’t have horses or any kind of livestock. Which means that I’ve never actually used the barn to stable anything other than some boxes and suitcases. Which also means that there’s no water or electricity. Plus, there are windows, but they’re boarded up with pieces of plywood.

So I drive down to the barn, let the dogs out of the car, grab the toolbox, and go to open the barn door.

Again, calling this a barn door is another stretch, just like the rest of the barn. It’s just one of the 4-foot-wide by 8-foot-high piece of plywood. It’s attached to the barn by two gate hinges, and there’s a big gate latch on the outside that keeps the door securely closed.

Now, because the door is pretty big and just attached with two gate hinges, if you want to keep the door open, you have prop it open with a big piece of concrete.

But on this day, I wasn’t planning on staying in the barn. I just had to swing the door open, drop the toolbox inside, and drive back to the house to enjoy the rest of the day and begin planning my future life. Easy!

I drop the toolbox on the ground. I unlatch the door and swing it open just enough for the dogs to run in excitedly and sniff around. With my one hand on the door, I pick up the toolbox with my other hand, step into the barn, and lean down to place the toolbox on the ground.

As I lean over, I lose my balance every so slightly, and the hand I’m holding the door open with comes off the door. As I turn around to catch the door before it swings shut, I hear this big WHHOOSH, a huge gust of wind sweeps by, I hear a big BANG, the barn door slams shut.

And then I hear a quieter, but more ominous sound – the gate latch on the outside of the door locks shut.

I am now trapped in a dark, empty barn 3 acres away from my nearest neighbor in the wee hours of the morning on New Years Day. No electricity, no water – and no cell phone because I wasn’t planning on staying down at the barn so it didn’t occur to me to bring it along.

And as the darkness closes around me, my life passes before my eyes because clearly, I’m probably going to perish out in this barn before anyone comes to rescue me. So for all intents and purposes, there is now No Way Out.

But, hang on a minute—aren’t I a process engineer by profession? Don’t I have a proven track record of being able to assess any situation and come up with a blueprint for getting from mess to success? Surely I can apply what I’ve learned from those experiences to getting out of this barn!

And exactly what have I learned that I can apply to this situation? In process engineering, we use a three-part methodology called, “As Is, To Be, Implement.” So how could I use this approach here?

Well, I just have to take stock of my “as is” surroundings, figure out what my options might be for getting to my “To Be” end-state (which, in this case is out of this barn), then implement the option that we achieve that end state (freedom!)

So, as my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, I take a look around, and I realize I have not just one option but several options.

Option #1: I can do nothing. It may seem paradoxical but doing nothing is always an option. Those of you who are hikers—what do they tell you to do when you get lost in the woods? “Do nothing. Stay where you are.” However, sometimes there are consequences even for doing nothing and, in this case, the consequences could be dire indeed if no one finds me. Plus, my dogs are starting to whimper and whine, so clearly they don’t think much of this option either.

Option #2: I can scream for help. Of course, my barn is 3 acres away from my nearest neighbor. Plus, it’s New Years Day, and it’s unlikely that any of my neighbors are even awake yet, let alone hiking out near my barn. It’s an option but probably not my best option.

Option #3. I could run at the barn door with all my might and hope to break the lock. Ashleigh Brilliant once said, “In order to get from what was to what will be, you must go through it.” Sound advice, no doubt. However, it might take a few tries before I actually succeed in breaking out through the door, during which time I would probably also break one of my shoulders and one or both legs, in which case, I won’t be able to crawl back to the car, let alone drive myself to the hospital. So, here’s another option that probably isn’t my best option.

Option #4. I could try to escape through the roof. Because the roof isn’t nailed down securely, I can see patches of daylight in some spots. And since I’m using the barn as a storage shed for lots of boxes and suitcases, I could pile everything up like a ladder, climb up, and try to push the roof away from the wall enough for me to shimmy out and drop to the ground. But remember—it’s at least 8 feet straight down, and that’s even assuming I can get up there and swing my legs over in the first place. Which ultimately means we’re looking at that whole “break my shoulders and my legs” outcome again, so this doesn’t seem to be my best option either.

Things are beginning to look bleak indeed if these are my only options. So not wanting to perish in a barn, I continue to take stock, and, looking around once more, I notice the boarded-up window.

Aha – another option!

I know that there’s no glass I have to break through because, as you recall, I never put the windows in. I just need to remove the plywood board that’s nailed over the opening on the inside of the barn. But how am I going to do that? I don’t have any tools.

Hang on a minute. I DO have tools – a bunch of tools. Which is why I have managed to stupidly lock myself in the barn in the first place!

So, I open up the tool box and take out the hammer. I pry out the nails, and the plywood board swings open just like a door! I climb up onto the window ledge, swing my legs out, and proceed to drop gracefully to the ground, which is about 7 feet below, managing to only scrape my arm and pull most of the muscles in my upper body in my fall from grace. I brush myself off, look around sheepishly to make sure that no one has seen me, because in the immortal words of Louisa May Alcott, “Let us be elegant or die,” go back around to the barn door, and open it to let my dogs out.

And as I drive back up to my house on this New Years Day of new beginnings, I realize that everything I will EVER need to know about finding my way out of any situation I’ve just learned by stupidly locking myself in the barn!

And at the heart of my wake-up call is a simple three-step process that anyone can use to Break Free From the No Way Out Syndrome: to move from where they are to where they want to be and transform any mess into success.

And just what are those steps?

1. Examine.

2. Envision.

3. Emerge.

So let’s look at how I discovered these steps and how I applied them to getting out of the barn. And as I tell you how I applied these steps, I ask you to begin thinking about how you might also use them in your own life right now.

Step #1: Examine. In order to get from where you are to where you want to be, you begin by taking stock of your present circumstances WITHOUT JUDGMENT.

One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, wrote this: “If you start to look around, you will start to see.”

If you’re going to break free from where you are in order to transform your life, the first thing you need to do is start to really see. See what might be keeping you locked in the barn, down in that steep hole, or trapped in the corn maze. Look around. Take stock. Look for your options. Look for the tools that might be available to you.

Now the most important thing about this step is taking stock NONJUDGMENTALLY. And why is this so important? Because if you’re too busy beating yourself up for getting locked in the barn or trapped in the maze in the first place, you can’t see clearly.

The moment I realized that I had locked myself in the barn, I thought to myself, “Are you stupid? You just locked yourself in the barn! There’s no way out. No one knows you’re down here!”

But then I realized that beating myself up was NOT going to get me out.

So I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then I took stock: I examined what was IN the barn that I might be able to use to get OUT of the barn: the door, the roof, the boxes and suitcases I could pile up, the boarded-up window, the tools in the toolbox.

Which brings us to Step 2 in our 3-step blueprint for Breaking Free From the No Way Out Syndrome.

Step #2: Envision. You visualize all of your options – and what the outcome might be for each option.

Once I examined my surroundings and my situation, what did I do next? I started to see that I did in fact have options, and I pictured the possible outcomes for each one.

And why do we picture the outcomes? Because you need to figure out which option is in your best and highest interest, which in my case, meant the one that would cause me the fewest broken bones!

Remember how I saw five options, each with a different outcome?

Option 1: I could do nothing – and wind up dead, or at the very least, deaf as a result of my dogs screeching in my ears.

Option 2: I could scream – and wind up hoarse (no pun intended) and probably still trapped in the barn.

Option 3: I could try to break down the door – and probably break one or more bones.

Option 4: I could try to break out through the roof – and probably break both of my legs in the fall.

Option 5: I could pry the board off the window and climb out – and maybe hurt myself in the fall.

All of these options were possible. Not all of them were in my best interest. But all of them were possible.

Which reminds of something that Coco Chanel once said, “Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.” Sounds like she might have locked herself in a barn once or twice herself, and she’s letting us know that, while we might have many options, not all of them are in our best interest.

Which brings us to the last step in our three-step blueprint for Breaking Free From the No Way Out Syndrome.

Step #3: Emerge. You take action towards whatever you decide is in your best and highest interest.

Herbert Hoover said, “Wisdom often consists of knowing what to do next.”

In order to Emerge from any hole you’ve fallen into, you have to figure out what to do using your own inner guidance system that knows what’s best for you.

So how did I apply this step to getting out of that blasted barn?

After I considered all of my options, I decided that my best course of action was to escape through the window. And what did I do to literally Emerge from that barn? I took action!

·         I found the tools I needed to pry off the board.

·         I hoisted myself up onto the window ledge.

·         I dropped gracefully down to the ground on the other side.

Free at last!

Dr. Michael Smith said this: “You are the one who finds your way out and you will.”

Looking at your life today, do you feel as if you’re locked in a barn with no way out? Are you at a place in your life where you know where you want to be but you can’t figure out how to get there from here? Maybe you’re overwhelmed by options, but you need help to determine which option is in your best interest?

Well take heart—and take action!

If I can get myself out of a locked barn without breaking a single bone, you can Break Free of anything that is currently holding you back and keeping you from getting from where you are to where you want to be. And you don’t even need to lock yourself in the barn to know what that is.

You just need to follow these three simple steps to leave behind all of the thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, emotions, and expectations that no longer serve you.

Examine your situation without judgment. Envision your options. And then select your best option to take action and Emerge into the Light!

The author Barbara Sher said, “You need never be hopelessly stuck again, you can get moving now.” So if you find that you need a little help getting back in touch with your inner guidance system, so you can get moving now, I’m here for you! You can check out any of my books, take one of my workshops, or just chat with me about where you are so that, together, we can get you to where you want to be!