“Find the gratitude in your life, and you'll find joy standing right next to it.” -Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go
Getting Unstuck: The Power of One Joyful Thing By: Mary Beth Rice
Somehow, I have gotten off path. In the last few days I have fallen into the abyss of stuckness. I imagine I am not the only one to have gone there lately; to the stuck place where you are distracted in thought and seemingly unproductive in most aspects of your daily round? Something is not quite right but you can’t name it or put your finger on it exactly. Or, conversely, you know exactly what is causing the anxiety and it is not going away anytime soon?
Every day the media reports about loss—of life, of control in managing the pandemic, of the freedom to move about in physical spaces. How I long to give those I love big bear hugs! I struggle with trying to connect with others, awkwardly attempting new ways of doing so. And worse, it seems that everyone I love around me has a different assessment on what is happening—the seriousness of it all, what we should be doing to protect self and others. I am wired to feel things deeply , and I work hard at not “wearing” all of the surrounding emotions that range from fear to sadness to anger. Currently, I am on a Kubler-Ross Grief Scale treadmill, running up and down the feelings of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. All of us have different perspectives, varying experiences from life to draw upon. Can I please stop on acceptance and rest there? Find some serenity amidst this angst?
I came across the phrase to lose heart in a meditation this week. To lose heart is to become discouraged, giving up and giving in because of weariness or frustration. Losing heart can push me into stuckness. I can easily lose heart when hurt by someone close to me, when much anticipated plans are put on hold, when I’m on edge about going out on an errand or trying to keep my home disinfected...when constantly having to change up all the million and one ways I am “doing” my life. In these moments of stuckness I seem to lose my usual determination or confidence—my hopeful spirit. I become disheartened. Yikes!
I desperately need a reminder of another path. What about taking heart rather than losing heart? Taking heart means to be courageous! If I can muster up the tenacity to flip my perspective on its head—much like the world has been flipped on its head I suppose—what might that look like? Perhaps it is in finding in each new day at least one thing for which to be grateful. When a friend of mine gets stuck, he professes to make a point to take one practical step and one joyful step each day. Just one of each, yet those two steps can turn into a few more, and soon we may be running....no, skipping through our day, tough stuff and all. Imagine it!
Taking heart looks different to all of us. In a practical sense it may mean creating order in your home by cleaning out a junk drawer or shredding the contents from an overly stuffed cabinet. Maybe it’s raking out the yard to ready for new growth. Maybe its setting boundaries on what we need to do as a family to stay healthy during this time. Encouragement can come from these big and small acts.
Joyfully speaking, for me, it can be witnessing sunrises and sunsets or baking something that makes the house smell incredible and sharing it with someone. It is making time to send a card to someone to encourage or appreciate them in their current struggle or good fortune. (See Joymaking)
What I am wishing for us all right now, in whatever unknown place we find ourselves, is to concentrate on taking one practical step and one joyful step, one day at a time, focusing on gratitude, to loosen ourselves from the stuckness—to take heart.