10 Things to Do If You’re Stuck in a Rut

Oh, Boy, I'm in a Rut

What do you do when you’re stuck in a rut? Even though I’ve written about this in several posts—“12 Ways to Keep Going,” “Getting Through the Rough Spots,” and “12 Strategies to Help You Recover From Relapse”—I fail to remember the pointers when I’m there myself.

My present mood dip isn’t a mammoth relapse, thank God. But it is enough of a wake-up call to go back to the building blocks of my recovery program and see if something is missing, or—even if I’m doing everything right—find a few more tools that can help me get to a better place. I list them here as much for myself as for you.

Therese J. Borchard writes the Beyond Blue blog on Beliefnet. Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue and click here to follow Therese on Twitter and click here to join Group Beyond Blue, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.

Stay Focused

Um. Duh? Yeah, okay, this one is kind of obvious, but really freak’in hard when getting through a simple task feels like competing an Ironman…in crutches. When I’ve got that familiar knot in my stomach—which feels as if I have just robbed a bank and must to confess it to the priest that scares the hell out of me at church—I try to break up my responsibility into miniscule pieces.

If I think, “You have to compose three erudite, substantial blog posts today,” there is a likelihood that I will throw up or at least not be able to eat all day. But if I say, “In the next half hour, you have to construct three simple sentences,” I’m much better off because that I can do. So instead of throwing my arms up and yelling, “To hell with it!” I can take baby steps and do the thing that I am doing.

Help Someone

This one is tough when you’re not feeling well yourself, but I’ve never walked away from an act of charity feeling worse. I think it has something to do with tricking your mind and body (and the person you are helping) that you actually have your stuff together, so together, in fact, that you are able to offer assistance. I suspect God plops people in front of you that need your help when you want to do nothing but crawl back in bed and ruminate.

At least that’s how it happens to me. In the process of extending my hand, I am reminded that, although I feel alone in my pain, almost every human being is suffering in some form or another, and that if we see our pain as part of the collective pain of human suffering, we have each other and are in it together.

Surround Yourself with People

This one is counterintuitive, as well. The last thing you feel like doing is talking to a person. You might be fine conversing with a computer, a mug of coffee, or a bowl of cereal. People are somewhat unappealing. Unfortunately, isolation never helps you feel better. I have conducted studies in my own life.

I always think isolation is the only thing to do, but my brain is just craving it much like my stomach craved a Big Mac when I was pregnant. Whenever I followed through with that one, the flame-broiled thing (or is that Burger King’s invention?) caused me serious heartburn. When you force yourself into a circle of people there is a slight chance of your forgetting how miserable you feel. Not guaranteed. But possible.

Say the Serenity Prayer

When all else fails, pray the Serenity Prayer. Ask God for the strength to accept the things you can’t control: your great aunt’s genes that predispose you to more turbulence in your life than you would like and neural circuits that are firing at each other like the Union army against the Confederates in the American Civil War.

Ask God for the courage to change the things you can: surrounding yourself with people when you want to shut out the world for a year; eating almonds, spinach, and salmon for lunch (with lots of Omega 3s) instead of the delicious chocolate cake that is sitting on the kitchen counter; and making an appointment with your shrink to sort out what’s going on. Most importantly, ask God for the wisdom to know the difference.