How to Get Unstuck: Move

Remember, your body is real

Image by Sri Yoga Ashram via Unsplash

When we live inside our heads, fretting about this or that, focusing on one project or the other, it’s rather easy to forget that nature gave us a bunch of other parts besides our worried brains. In fact, those parts — when taken as a whole — make up an entire body. Did you forget? It’s cool — we all do, until something hurts. But today, our creative task is to remember our bodies before they yell at us.

Look, I’ve got exercise tools that I ignore much of the time, just like you do. I love my Peloton when I use it — and I’m paying off that 0% APR loan until the death of the sun, probably — but I don’t use it very often. I’m embarrassed by how little I use it, considering what I’m paying for it and how great a piece of equipment it is and how cool Ally Love is, and…okay, I’m feeling motivated again.

I’ve got a couple of hand weights that are very nice pieces of decor, and a yoga mat that comes out once in awhile for its intended purpose — which, as it turns out, is not just “being occasionally chewed by my cat.”

But I do actually move my body for reasons other than attempts to meet my basic needs or to perform simple tasks. And I’ve found that conscious movement absolutely helps me get unstuck when I’m troubled by a creative task — or, quite frankly, an emotional conundrum.

Please note — as with anything in the How to Get Unstuck series, these suggestions are presented by someone in a particular body which can do certain things and cannot do other things.

My brain, too, does certain things in its own way — for example, I have a mild and occasionally annoying form of congenital prosopagnosia (face blindness) which is an adventure all its own and inspires me to modify certain elements of my day. I can’t complain — it has made my life more stressful sometimes, but certainly more interesting — but it does mean I take more time to do certain things.

My point? Your experience with these suggestions will vary depending on your own body, brain, and preferences, so — have a good time, and adapt any of this as necessary.

Take a walk

It needn’t be far. I have a book called Beneath My Feet: Writers on Walking and man, is it inspiring. So…