stuck

What Moves You? Part Two

/ Jill Winski

Last week, I wrote about how small actions can inspire us to movement, and how we can create an inner battle when we try to force ourselves to move.

There are times, though, when we know it’s in our best interest to take a particular action, but still we feel resistant. Still, we can’t seem to act. How do we tell the difference between the times when we genuinely want to move, but feel like an elephant is sitting on us, and the times when our lack of movement is a sign that it’s right for us to be still at this moment?

First, we check in with our bodies. Our bodies are always a wise guide for us. For example, right now I’d like to work on a chapter of my novel (okay, to be more accurate, I believe I should work on a chapter of my novel), but I find I’m not doing it. When I think about doing it, I feel a gnawing anxiety in my abdomen. My shoulders feel tight and my jaw is clenched. Ugggh — negative body compass reading for sure. Does this mean I shouldn’t work on my novel today?

Not necessarily. I need to interpret what I’m feeling in my body. What’s going on here? If I were to put words to what I’m feeling in my body, what would they be? Well, I don’t think the writing is very good. Something’s off about the voice. It’s a terrible novel. And really, I should have finished it a year ago …

There are a number of thoughts here that I could question. The writing’s not very good — is that true? The voice is off. Is that true? It’s a terrible novel. True? Should have finished it a year ago. Is that true?

All of this is mind chatter. It feels stressful, and that’s how I know I need to question these thoughts. The mind throws lots of thoughts out there — most of them negative — and if I take them too seriously, if I attach to them too much, they become a story about this novel: It sucks. Why work on it?

Just questioning the thoughts, though, I detach from them a little. I become the observer. I already feel a little lighter about working on my novel, because I can see where my mind may be feeding me some lies. At least some of the writing is probably good. It’s possible the voice may need some tweaking, but I’ll learn more about what’s going on with that by working on it. It may actually be a pretty good novel. Why should I have finished it a year ago? Who says?

Now, let’s look at what happens when I put words to the sensations in my body and I get something entirely different. Let’s say I check in with my body and feel a gnawing anxiety in my abdomen, tight shoulders, and a clenched jaw. I ask, what’s going on here? And the answer that comes is: Well, I’m feeling really burned out on this book. There’s no energy going toward it. I’ve been working hard on it, and I’d really like to put it aside for a while. I’d like to “fill the well,” as Julia Cameron puts it in The Artist’s Way.

How is this second situation different? In the first, I question my thoughts because they’re stressful, and when I do, I know I want to work on the novel. I just need to quiet the mind chatter, comfort it, put it to bed. (It’s okay, dear little Mind, we are going to work on the book anyway. There, there.)

In the second scenario, how do I know I really want to take a break, put the novel aside for a while, and fill the well? Because the thoughts don’t feel stressful. They are pointing me to what is true for me. The truth, even if we’re not thrilled with the sound of it, is never stressful. What is deeply true for us creates peace and clarity.

(And it will take trust in the process, and movement itself, for me to allow myself this break, this rest. But it will be well worth it.)

If what I wrote above just blew your mind or gave you a raging migraine, here’s another way to tell whether you really want to move toward something or not, which I learned from Martha Beck: If you feel ONLY fear, don’t do it. At least not right now. Regroup and figure out what’s going on. What’s the fear about? What’s its message for you?

If you feel fear AND desire, do it! (But do find some support and understanding for the part of you that is fearful. It can be a lot easier to take action when you have a friend to hold your hand, or at least hold the space for your fear.)

One caveat here: Sometimes I am so confused, overwhelmed, and out of my mind that I really can’t get in touch with my body very well, and I really don’t know if I’m feeling only fear, or a mix of fear and desire, or whether I have morphed into a garden slug. In these instances, I’ve learned that I may not know whether or not I truly wanted to take an action UNTIL I’ve taken it.

How do you determine whether or not you really want to take action right now? I’d love to know!

What Moves You? Part One

/ Jill Winski / 10 Comments

Lately I’ve been working with a couple of people who say they are stuck. I empathize, deeply. “Stuck” is one of my personal themes. I’m fascinated by this idea of “stuck.” In truth, I don’t think we are ever actually stuck. I think what happens is we stop moving, and we get scared. Because we have a lot of “shoulds” around the idea that we are supposed to look like we are in motion, all the time.

This reminds me of a boyfriend I had in my twenties. He liked to beat himself up for “procrastinating,” and he used to say to me, “Jill, an object in motion tends to stay in motion. An object at rest tends to stay at rest.” “I am not an object!” I would yell at him. “And neither are you!” (Could it be more obvious I was actually yelling at myself?)

The fact is, our lives — our creativity, our relationships, our work — have ebbs and flows. We like it when things are flowing, but when they stop flowing for a while, we label this “bad” and “wrong.” What if they never start flowing again? I think this is the point at which we begin to think we are stuck. But this is just a thought. Like any thought, it can be questioned.

Sometimes it helps to look at areas in our lives where we do not feel stuck. I’d be willing to bet that it’s impossible to feel “stuck” in every single area of our lives at once. Even if everything “big” feels like it’s in a state of endless stall, I bet you can find one thing that feels like it’s flowing. 2008 was a big year of “stuck” for me. I’d finished graduate school and for the first time I had a summer where I wasn’t working on my thesis or taking a class and it felt like everything had stopped. And to top it all off, I felt horribly uncreative. And I was supposed to be this writer.

Looking back, I realize Iwas burned out. I needed rest. But I fought against the feeling that things weren’t moving for a long time. I am not supposed to be feeling this way, I thought. Guess what fighting against it did? It made me feel more stuck, and it extended the process of feeling stuck. Even so, I was able to, at some point, finally look around and notice that there was an area of my life where I didn’t feel stuck. There was an area of my life where it felt like things were flowing: my friendships. I had good ones, and they were alive and vibrating. I can’t tell you how focusing on this aspect of my life, this aspect that felt like it was working, helped me move through the stuck.

So there are a couple of steps that emerge here:

1) When things aren’t moving, let them be still. Embrace the non-movement, the ebb. If you find yourself labeling this “stuck,” accept the feeling of stuck.

2) Look for an area where things are moving. Notice the flow in that area. Ask yourself if you are making things flow in that area.

The next step is noticing what creates movement for you. Is it true that you really must force yourself to move? For me, “Just do it” has never been a particularly helpful mantra. It adds pressure to my already-pressured and battered soul that has its reasons for wanting to be still. Try doing nothing for thirty minutes and you will see how difficult it really is to actually not do. So I question the idea that we must force ourselves into movement. What can be helpful, however, is to notice what inspires us to movement.

For me, movement starts with giving myself full permission to not move. To be exactly where I am and fully embrace that. This can require a lot of trust. In myself, in the process of life. In movement itself. Natalie Goldberg wrote in Wild Mind that in order to write some word, there must first be no word. It’s the same concept.

A small physical movement — one that feels manageable and doable — can really help. That might be a walk down the block. Or, if you are a walk-a-holic like me, that might mean an hour-long daydreamy walk. The key is that whatever the movement is, it must feel manageable and doable to you. It must inspire you to say “Yes!” If that means the movement is a cat-like arch of your back with your hands and feet planted on the floor, and that’s all, great. That is enough, for now.

In Part Two, we’ll delve more into movement — when to create it, and when to accept that maybe you do not want to move right now.

I’d love to hear what inspires you to movement. What steps do you take, and how do you treat yourself in a way that inspires movement?