Let's Get Unstuck

“Whenever you are feeling stuck in your life, remember there are 1440 minutes in the day, which means you have 1440 chances to do something different and change your life.” — from edlester.com

I will admit that I’ve been feeling a bit stuck lately. I’m sure many of you can relate. Things just don’t seem to be going to plan lately, do they? Most days feel a bit mundane, and I feel like I’m caught in this sort of limbo. There’s a lot I “can’t” do and I often feel like I’m waiting for change. Life can change at any minute—you get the call that someone has been exposed or that school is closing, you try to do something that seems like it should be easy and straightforward only to find there are countless new hoops to jump through and procedures to follow. Planning anything becomes hard, and then once something is finally planned it feels unreliable. There are days that nothing feels easy and that everything takes longer, and costs a lot more money than it used to. And activities that used to leave me feeling inspired are limited, leaving me feeling a whole lot less inspired.

So after two weeks of being unable to find something inspirational to write about, I decided let’s just acknowledge how easy it is to feel stuck. Use you own definition of stuck—stuck in the house, stuck with little to do, stuck with less connection to others, stuck with nowhere to work out, etc. Mine has been partly creatively stuck, stuck in limbo, and stuck trying to figure out how to support and help the growing number of people who are in need who cannot access what they need.

It’s frustrating to say the least, and it feeds itself. We feel stuck, it frustrates us, so we give up or let go of some of the healthy and inspiring things that “un-stick” us and in the process get ourselves more stuck. I’ve watched this exact thing happen in my own life in the past couple of months and have had a really hard time breaking the cycle. Or maybe we feel stuck so we use turn to our vices and/or to something less healthy to numb the discomfort or escape the discomfort. This helps briefly, but only serves to “stick” us deeper once the band-aid is ripped off.

I’m sure you’re getting my point, it’s a cycle, and one we actively perpetuate and even exacerbate, because we are human and we don’t like the discomfort of feeling stuck. Rather than actively doing something to break the cycle, we try to escape its discomfort by doing something that only perpetuates it.

So today let’s do something different. Let’s begin to let ourselves acknowledge and feel the discomfort of the stuck feeling, and find something healthy we can do for ourselves. Then let’s take it a step further and commit to making this one thing a consistent, regular practice.

What can you do? Today I committed to a live yoga class (there are studios where you can Zoom in for live classes) and have committed to do this class every week. I made this particular choice because I’ve let movement go recently, and have not been doing much of anything. I’ve found in the past that if I can do one live class per week, I will usually do at least a couple more recorded classes per week, or will get myself out for a run or something else, and this movement helps everywhere else in my being. The yoga classes also provide me with a dose of inspiration and food for thought each time, so it really helps me.

Perhaps for you it’s also finding a way to get exercise back into your routine. Getting out for a walk or run or hike might be a good start, particularly if you can get outside. Or perhaps it’s committing to replacing something less heathy with something more healthy—for example, at least once or twice a week (or for a week or even a month) skipping that glass of wine or beer or cocktail and having something non-alcoholic instead (hint: think ginger beer, tea, hot chocolate, dessert/ice cream, or some other treat). Or maybe turning off the tv and putting away your phone/social media device and picking up a good book.

Take a look at your stuckness and decide for yourself what small change you can make that might help you not only feel a little better in the moment but might also lead to another small change, and then another, and so on. A few small changes later and you may find yourself feeling a whole lot less stuck, and even a bit more inspired.

It worked for me today. That one commitment I made to myself (and my yoga teacher) to show up to the class today made all the difference in the world. Here I am writing something after 2 weeks of having nothing to say. And even if I don’t do any recorded yoga classes or get out for a run, I know that I’ve committed to the same class next week and have it scheduled. It might take a couple of weeks to get to a more consistently better place, but the small change I made today was the first step in a positive direction, and will eventually build momentum.

Make a small change today, just one, and see where it leads you.