Action is the Antidote
Take a step!
Action is the antidote to anxiety and to inertia. Action is the antidote to overwhelm and to loneliness. Action is the antidote for pursuing large and small goals. Action is the antidote to boredom and to a nervous system that feels overloaded. Taking an action will take you out of your head and into a space where you can move forward.
As I headed into my 40’s I found myself irritated, bored, short tempered, and restless. On paper, I had everything I could want or need, but the dissatisfaction was real, persistent, and overwhelming so I made an appointment for therapy.
Through a series of sessions, one of the things that I came to understand was that I was no longer doing any of the things I loved. They had slowly fallen by the wayside as my life centered around the needs of my children, husband, and home. Not only did I not make time for these activities, but I felt overwhelmed by the idea of them, and the actual execution felt like a huge mountain of effort. I learned that depression does not always manifest as sadness and/or lethargy, but sometimes as feeling really tightly wound and dissatisfied - like I did.
Therapy taught me to consciously push through those feelings of overwhelm by taking one step at a time. To bring in some of what I used to love doing (sewing, reading, having a date night with my husband), and to give up activities that felt draining (attending EVERY SINGLE EVENT that my children were in). Doing this would combat some of the negative feelings I was having and start to restore a sense of balance in my life.
This strategy has helped me time and again over the years. Start by taking an action. Add something in, or take something out. This helped me when I joined WW, and when I was working to resolve chronic back pain. Over these many years, I have learned that if I push through the frequent natural feelings of procrastination and/or avoidance, and take an action, I always feel a little better.
Now in my 5th decade of life, I find that the action that is often the most helpful for me when feeling stuck, anxious, worried, lonely, or bored, is to take a walk outside, without any headphones. It soothes my nervous system. I look at the sky, the trees, what is growing in the ground, I mull over whatever is going on, I enjoy the light. I always come back home feel more centered, calmer, and more serene. My perspective is reset, perhaps I thought of a solution of some sort, and often I have let go (at least a little bit!) of what I cannot control.
The action you decide to take depends on where you are, what you are feeling, and what you want to move towards. Maybe the action is really practical like doing some meal planning, or scheduling exercise with a friend; or maybe it is taking a deep breath when you find yourself stuck in traffic; or taking a walk outside when YOUR nervous system feels overactive.
Does taking the action solve the problem? No. But, that is not the point - the point is to recenter, and to regain a sense of mastery over your state of mind, and to control what you are able to.
What action(s) do you need to take today to get unstuck? What action do you need to take today to feel calmer and more in control? What action do you need to take today that might reduce your stress?
