One thing I find in common with others who were or are in a rut is that
there is a sense of being out of control, having lost all power, a feeling
of helplessness. One of the first things we need to do is to regain that
power and sense of control. Not tyrannical power or obsessive control
because those can come from anger, resentment and fear. Instead we
need to regain rightful power over and control of our own capsule.
What I mean by “capsule“ is; our boundaries, the comfortable space around
us, our mind, our body, our thoughts, our feelings and every space in between
those that make up our state of mind and being.
The visual I see in my mind of someone who is deep in a rut is this; they are not
on their feet and their capsule is unzipped or broken wide open with all of the
contents strewn all over the place, unguarded for anyone to handle or stomp on
or destroy or steal or manipulate.
When people perceive that we do not take care of our things (or capsule contents),
they get the impression that we don’t value our things and they may be more
likely to treat them/us accordingly.
The person in the rut is often preoccupied trying to just get their chin up out of
the mud so that they can breathe. They may not have the wherewithal to deal with
what’s happening to the contents of their capsule. However, they are hypersensitive
to all of the miss handling of them while these contents are laid out, vulnerable
and subjected to the actions of others.
You may be interested in these posts: WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE IN A RUT or REDIRECT FROM DAILY STRESS
When contents are miss handled or miss treated, the person in a rut can feel it
times ten. This can drive someone down further, exponentially.
The first thing we need to do, even if our chin is still in the mud, is to extend our
arms (though they may be weary) and begin to gather up those wayward contents,
dusting them off with care (just as we’d treat something of great value) and putting
them back into our capsule (into our possession ), acknowledging to ourselves that
we are reclaiming control and power over them and rightfully so.
Think about those contents as your foundation. Our thoughts, feelings and actions
are what our lives rest on. If we allow all of it to be pulled out from underneath us, we
wind up flat on the ground without a foundation.
As we begin to drag our contents back into our capsule, under our rightful control,
we will automatically be lifting our own self up, inch by inch to a position where we can
begin to catch our breath more easily.
Of course, this is far easier to say than it is to do especially when we are barely able to
breathe but the alternative is never going to help us catch our breath and redirect us to
a simpler more peaceful world.
Think of all the times that you may have thought to yourself or said to someone else
something similar to this; “if I could stop thinking about it I would” or “if I didn’t have to
feel hurt by this I wouldn’t“ or “this is about the last thing I want to talk about“.
It is so very important to understand that you have rightful and ultimate power over your
own feelings and thoughts and actions. Even if others are desperately trying to get to
them, you are the one with master access to the controls when it comes to those things
within your capsule.
If we do not believe it enough to acknowledge that, then why would
we ever try to take control or do the hard work to regain power over them?
Is there any one thing that happened years ago and every now and then when you
think about it you still begin to feel strong feelings, get irritated or angry or upset?
That’s just one incident. What if you had one or two or five of those incidents every
year that you kept shelving in your mind instead of resolving them, putting them to
rest permanently?
In 20 years you could be sitting there with 20 or 100 possible stimuli to Spring up
spontaneously (so it seems) making you feel bad, upset, angry, hurt, completely
dictating your thoughts and feelings. What if on a bad day you thought about more
than one of those things? That is not the fruit we want to produce from our lives, is it?
We do not want to gather and nurture these kinds of memories. There are things we
need to deal with today. We do not need a pile of five years ago to deal with too.
One of the most dangerous things about gathering these memories that act as
negative emotional stimuli over time is that whenever they strike and you react, you
are training your thoughts and feelings, creating a path in your mind, building a habit
or even an obsession or addiction. They will progressively take you to that negative
state more easily and typically more frequently.
Eventually one negative stimuli can trigger others (negativity is a ‘general’ state of mind
ready to host a crowd). It can result in the development of connected or intertwined
thought patterns or stimuli that feeds off one to the other.
This is a perfect recipe for a deep rut. These stimuli need to be eradicated permanently
so that you can remain strong enough to deflect the negativity that may try to infiltrate
your life today.
Once the capsule contents are gathered and reclaimed, it is time to clean out the cobwebs.
An inventory of negative stimuli that has been shelved needs to take place. This may be
painful, but it is very necessary.
These are low hanging fruit for empowering yourself again because quickly (often
spontaneously ) they can tap and drain so much energy, joy, motivation, hope and lead
you in the wrong direction.
All of the negative stimuli may not be identified in one sitting but staying aware is
key to collectively compiling the inventory list. The escape into denial that we
sometimes allow ourselves is the perfect condition for this negative stimuli to hide
and become a destructive parasitic force in the mind.
Think of how appalled people become at the mere thought of any type of parasite
feeding off of them, “oh heck no!“ just the thought of it can give you the creeps for
days, yet many let the worst kind of destructive parasite (negative thoughts) live
In their minds sucking the life out of them and some continually invite more and
more variants (anger, bitterness, resentment) in to do the same.
As you begin to identify these unresolved negative thoughts that have been
collecting dust on the shelves of your mind, look at only one at a time. You may
realize that at face value, one by one, they just aren’t as important as you once
thought they were.
Imagine all of those shelves loaded with only great memories
and plenty of empty, clean space for new thoughts and perceptions. The world
may suddenly seem more exciting (and a RFL more attainable).