Why you keep ending up in the same place

I first read this poem in my late twenties and I had to put it down and stare at the wall for a while. Because I knew that hole. I had fallen into it more times than I could count — different people, different circumstances, same feeling at the bottom.

Portia Nelson wrote it in 1977 and somehow she wrote it about all of us.

“I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.”

Portia Nelson, The Romance of Self-Discovery

The moment that changed everything for me wasn’t when I stopped falling. It was when I finally saw the hole for what it was — not bad luck, not other people’s fault, but a pattern. My pattern. And patterns, once you can see them, can be shifted.

That’s what Soulve is for. Not to fix you because you’re not broken.

Just to help you finally see the hole.