The Simple Mantra I Use When I Feel Stuck

If it works for me, it can work for you too.

There have been times in my life when I’ve felt stuck and unable to decide what to do — the biggest of which was determining whether or not to leave my husband. I was unhappily married but I didn’t want to be divorced.

The ramifications of leaving my marriage scared the shit out of me.

Plus, I’d just purchased some bookshelves for my family room that I’d been eyeing for years. The space finally looked pulled together and I was happy with the outcome. I’d also recently installed a lovely outdoor patio area and enjoyed spending every available moment I had out there.

I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving those spaces behind. I clung to them like a kid with a new toy.

Yet clinging to that stuff kept me stuck. To top it off, I’d left my career for the sake of my family which made me feel financially stuck. I was also stuck on confusing marriage messages — ones that say marriages are hard work — not realizing that both partners must do the work together.

And when it came to sex and all the restrictions my husband placed on it, I felt stuck there too.

Stuck, stuck, stuck. I was wedged under heaps and piles of sucky stuckness.

During this time, I came across the book Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle. In it, she offers this advice for getting unstuck.

Do the next right thing.

I found this simple practice to be revolutionary. These words became and continue to be my mantra.

Here’s why this mantra works.

It doesn’t ask us to do anything big.

It just asks us to do something. It asks us to do what feels best right now. Sometimes the next right thing is simply googling Therapists Near Me.

Sometimes it’s getting off the sofa and going for a walk. Sometimes it’s staying on the sofa with a soft blanket and a cup of hot tea.

Sometimes it’s slipping under the covers for a nap. Sometimes it’s flopping on top of those covers and bawling like a baby.

Sometimes it's just pausing.

The point is to do what feels right for us right now — not what we think may be right next month or even next week.

It’s one of those present-moment things we hear about so often. Doing what’s right for ourselves right now puts us in the present moment and often what’s best right now isn’t doing anything big.

It certainly can be something big, but it doesn’t have to be.

And just so you know, napping and pausing are verbs. Both are doing something.

It gets us in tune with our bodies.

Our bodies hold a lot of wisdom if we take the time to listen to them. We may believe our minds hold the answers but when we’re stuck our thoughts often circle around and never land on anything.

Our bodies are where we feel things — in our hearts and especially in our guts. I’m a firm believer that our intuition lives in our gut and offers us a direct helpline to our Divine Creator, Universe, Source — whatever name you like to call it.

That’s where we find the best answers. We don’t get them through our minds. We get them by listening to our bodies. Doing the next right thing helps calm the chatter in our heads so we can hear what our gut is telling us to do.

If we pause and listen, our bodies tell us whether we need to phone that therapist, nap, or bawl like a baby. Doing the next right thing tunes us into our body’s cues.

It helps us deal with inertia.

Here’s the thing I know about stuckness. Remember Newton’s First Law of Motion which states that a body at rest will remain that way unless a force is applied? The same is true with stuckness. We’ll remain stuck unless we apply some kind of force.

By doing the next right thing we begin to apply that force however small it may be. It gets the ball rolling.

If finding the energy to overcome inertia feels hard, it may help to apply a tactic we often use with toddlers to get their bodies moving. First, determine the next right thing to do. Then start a countdown.

5 4 3 2 1. Lift off!

Oddly, this little trick often gives us the boost needed to pick up our phone, lace up our walking shoes, or begin that hard conversation with our partner. It's amazing how effective this simple technique can be.

It works for rockets. It works for 3 years olds. And it can work for us.

It helps us take a step.

Doing the next right thing is about taking some kind of action however big or small. It’s about taking a step.

One step. Any step.

And here’s the thing I’ve learned about taking a step. Sometimes the next right thing may be a bit fuzzy, especially if it’s a bigger one. So if we take a small step in a direction, and it’s the right direction, things often fall into place. It will feel right.

If we meet a ton of resistance, it may not be the best choice. Oftentimes too, if it’s the wrong step, we’ll feel it in our bodies. Our gut will tell us it doesn’t feel right.

If this happens, all we need to do is to pivot and take a step in another direction. Just because we started down one path doesn't mean we have to continue going that way.

Bottom line

Often we get stuck because we’re afraid of making mistakes. We’re afraid we’re going to do the wrong thing and f*ck things up.

But you know what? When we’re stuck, things are already f*cked up, otherwise, we wouldn’t be stuck. So really, doing the next right thing helps to unf*ck things. It helps us begin moving in a better direction.

When we keep doing the next right thing, we can’t go wrong, because, by its very nature, we’re doing the next right thing.

As the saying goes, put one foot in front of the other and soon you’ll be walking out the door. Maybe one day you’ll be strolling arm in arm with your partner on a date night to begin reigniting your love for each other.

Maybe you’ll be slipping over to meet that therapist near you.

Maybe you’ll be moving into a new apartment and a new life.

None of these actions needs to be determined right now though. The only thing you need to do today is the next right thing.

kasey sparks, © 2022

Thank you for reading. To quote Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.” If you’d like to join me on the journey, click here.