What if you tried doing something different?

Maybe it’s something in the water. Maybe it has something to do with how the planets are aligned. Perhaps it’s just a random coincidence.

Be what it may, the fact is that a sizeable bunch of people around me are feeling very stuck right now.

The reasons are varied. The symptoms are the same.

Heavy minds. Heavy bodies. Heavy spirits.

Frustration, obsessive overthinking, and short fuses are what show up during waking hours. Insomnia and disrupted sleep patterns manifest during the night when the body and mind are due rest and recuperation, which gives rise to even more rumination, more negative energy, and an even narrower perspective on one's self and place in the world.

And so ensues a vicious cycle that I liken to a “toilet bowl death spiral”.

It goes something like this:

• Stage 1 is where you want something to happen that isn’t happening, and that state of affairs obdurately persists way beyond a duration of your liking with no clear path to resolution in sight.
• Stage 2 is when your body feels full of pent-up energy but you can’t find the wherewithal to focus constructively on anything and the conditions are ripe for picking a fight with anyone who has the misfortune to rub you up the wrong way, even ever so slightly.
• Stage 3 is characterised by increasingly obsessive overthinking, when all your efforts feel stymied and futile, your value – nay, your entire being - is underappreciated, everything seems kind of hopeless, and nothing seems to be going your way.

Which then unleashes full-blown Stage 4 where change feels urgent, essential, borderline existential and it can now go one of two ways:

• Stage 4a is when the urgency propels you into making a risky, radical move where you throw caution to the wind, ignore any weak signals and red flags that in more reasoned circumstances you definitely would pay heed to, and essentially jump off the proverbial side of a cliff without first testing your parachute.

Why? Quite simply, because you just can’t stand the status quo any longer. Anything else has to be better than this, right?

Right?

The problem with Stage 4a is that once the adrenaline rush of feeling cut free from the ties that bind you has subsided and the feel-good endorphins have all but stopped, you unfortunately and quite rapidly tend to find yourself back in Stage 1.

The reality of all those weak signals and red flags that you chose not to look at before you made your big leap stubbornly raised their ugly head and unceremoniously bite you in the ass.

And so, despite the illusory and short-lived relief afforded by what seemed to be a deep cleansing flush, the deleterious centrifugal force of the toilet bowl death spiral sucks you back in for another round…

But despair not, dear friend. There is another path, one less travelled and one that, in my humble experience, leads to infinitely better outcomes.

Let me present to you the path to growth and a more wholesome, balanced flavour of “enough-ness”, also known as Stage 4b.

• Stage 4b is accessible to all of us but not all of us unlock it, mostly because the temptation of Stage 4a instant gratification and a short-lived hit of relief from discomfort is just too much to resist when we’re stuck in the seemingly endless awfulness of our situation.

Dear friend, I urge you. Dig deep and muster a smidgen of self-restraint to avoid wallowing in the toxic cesspool of your frustration or jumping off that cliff, and exercise the compassionate self-awareness needed to understand why you may really, really want to.

Believe me, I've been there. I know.

The thing is, I also know the positive flip side. I know that it’s eminently possible to swim out of the toilet bowl death spiral, eschewing the unhelpful posture of?victim-hood and stepping into a zone of empowerment where we get to create the momentum of our next steps on a new track and with an entirely different level of intention.

When the door you're knocking on just won't open. When you feel like you're exhausting yourself pushing water up a hill. When other people refuse to see, refuse to act, refuse to change. When the odds seem stacked against you, and the weight of the world seems to be on your shoulders pushing you down, your single best act of self-preservation is to intentionally push up and out of the maelstrom you're caught in and pour your energy into something else.

Make it something of your choosing. Something that channels restorative energy into your soul and revives your zest for living.

Something that really feels good. Sustainably good. Something that allows you to stretch your mind and body, and expands your horizons in the process. For me, I found this by starting to learn to drum.

Breathe fresh air.

Seek out new people.

Move. The most important thing you have to do now is move.

Figuratively and physically.

“You can't steer a parked car.”

― Tim Elmore

The next step you choose to make doesn't have to be worthwhile or significant in anyone's eyes except your own.

And the only success criterion is that the momentum of the first step puts you on a path where you're doing something you enjoy, something that puts your energy switch "on", giving you a glimmer of hope and trawling the best bits of "you" back from the doldrums of existential angst.

My friend, feeling stuck isn't fatal. But forcing yourself to keep spinning wheels in a rut will eventually exhaust, deplete and suck all the good out of you.

So if you can't find a way to move forward on the track you're on, take a step to the side.

See what the world looks like from the verges. Allow yourself that space.

You are the creator of your own momentum. No matter what the obstacles, no matter what other people are or aren't doing, remember that.

You are the creator of your own momentum.

Nobody can ever take that power away from you.

My friend, you're unstoppable.

Go be amazing.

?AJ

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