when life no longer flows

You know that feeling where life is busy, a good kind of busy (you’re getting things done, you’re feeling productive, life just seems to be flowing), and then suddenly, as if the Universe has held up a massive fluorescent ‘stop’ sign, everything comes to a halt, the flow seems to cease, and you’re just not feeling ‘it’ anymore.

It’s horrible, isn’t it?

You feel like your mojo’s gone ‘poof’ like a genie returning to their bottle before you’ve used up all three of your wishes, as if your muse has packed her bags and disappeared on sabbatical without telling you. And you’re left there scrambling up scree on your own on a rockface, feeling like you’re constantly losing your grip and sliding back on the loose rocks.

Sometimes life takes this change in direction quickly and suddenly without warning, sometimes it happens a little more slowly and subtly and you don’t quite notice it until you’re too far down the slippery slope.

Regardless of how quickly this happens, when we find ourselves caught in this downward slide, we often struggle to get a hold of our grip quickly and we tend to find ourselves stuck in a rut.

The reason this happens?

Well, there tends to be only one answer to that: self-sabotage… however that’s a whole other blogpost, one well beyond the scope of today’s musings. Today I’m more interested in what to do to get out of that rut or funk, rather than how or why it happened.

You see, I have recently found myself stuck in a rut. Everything seemed to be running smoothly until it didn’t.

If I’m being completely honest with myself, everything stopped flowing a little while ago. I just didn’t spot it, didn’t want to admit it, didn’t know how to deal with it, and I thought it better to just keep pushing through. Because we’re taught to push through, aren’t we? We’re taught not to let challenges stops us in our tracks, we’re taught not to let negative experiences define us… and so on.

However, when we ignore the initial signs that things are no longer flowing smoothly, when we ignore the subsequent signs that things are starting to halt and back up, we’ve got to expect to, at some stage, hit a brick wall or get stuck in a rut. And when we hit that brick wall or get stuck in that rut, we don’t always know how to clamber our way out, through, or round.

When I look back, I can see that things were starting to back up a while ago.

I’d started to write a new course and although everything’s falling into place and the course has taken structure, my juices started to dry up a few days ago. Recently, writing the course hasn’t been as exciting, fun and flowing as I would have liked. Rather it’s been more like work (which I don’t like so much).

I had a couple of coldsores lately – always my body’s warning sign that things aren’t right, that things are out of balance. However, when they healed within a week, I thought everything was okay (I should’ve know better).

Although the bunny boys have now moved into their forever home together, after more than 6 months of constant daily bonding sessions, I have been sleeping alongside their area for the past week to ensure there are no hiccups during the night (as you can imagine I haven’t been getting the best night’s sleep).

On the very near horizon is a very special and emotional anniversary for me – a year since the passing of my little princess bunny. And I only just found out that my husband will be traveling and I’ll be alone on her anniversary when already I’m feeling the emotions and pain rising up inside me.

And only this morning I’ve woken feeling ‘blah’, a throat like sandpaper, an annoying cough and what feels like the onset of a cold.

It was when I woke up this morning that I finally realised that, for a while already, I have been stuck in this rut where my passion, enthusiasm, gusto for work, my bunnies, and my life have all faded slightly. However, when I look back I can see that, rather than taking a step back to re-balance myself, to re-align my energy, I did what so many of us do, the only thing that may of us know to do – I kept pushing onwards.

And, as a result, I woke up feeling ‘blah’ this morning.

This final sign, this final wake-up call has confirmed that I’ve not been listening to my body or reading the signs around me and I’ve landed myself in the rut at the bottom of a wall of scree.

If I had heeded the warning sides and taken better care of myself, I may have never ended up here. However, here I am. And my question is, how do I get myself out of this rut?

It’s not that I want to get out of the rut so I can go back to working hard, pushing onwards. I want to get out of this rut so I can get back in flow. There’s a difference, a big difference. The former will simply land you back in the rut again.

And, so, this is the question I’ve posed to the angels.

Viv xx