Success in Stasis: Dealing with the Doldrums

I was working my way towards something inspirational and success-related for you, Readers, but then the doggo was sick all night, and I got no sleep. So it seems like a time to remind myself and you that sometimes success is simply hanging on. Progress is not always an option. Sometimes there’s stasis. Sometimes there’s downward plunging. Sometimes there’s circling the drain. What’s that word for when you’re sailing and the wind dies? I would probably remember it if I weren’t so tired. Oh yeah, the doldrums. Sometimes it’s the doldrums. Don’t have a lot of control over that. Sometimes the wind just dies. Meaning you’re sailing along and heading somewhere, the wind ruffling your hair, and you’re feeling all windblown and healthy and looking towards the horizon. Sometimes, though, there’s no breeze, just nothing and humidity and your hair is frizzy and stuck to your cheeks and you’re suddenly hyper aware of your damp bathing suit and how unpleasant it feels. Of course, you are also gripped by the anxiety that this state will never change, that you’ll be bobbing along in the current with no control over the sails ever again. This anxiety that the doldrums will last forever is called catastrophizing, and it comes with the territory. It is, by the way, never helpful. 



Why the sailing metaphor, you may well ask. Well, before the doldrums hit, aka, the dog having a terrible night, I was enjoying my weekend thoroughly, sitting on a warm rock and dangling my feet into a lake, watching a sailboat race of little sunfish sailboats. It was a truly lovely time, involving lovely sailboats moving in the breeze, despite many sad things going on in the world and within my circle of influence. Today, though, I am just trying to get through the day. It helps to remember that just a day ago, the mood was much better, because the next step is a plunge into catastrophizing, which I just told you is never helpful, despite being a regular occurrence. 

Eventually, the wind will shift because you’ve drifted along in the current just enough to get to a slightly different place. Then you’ll be able to fill your sails and start moving again. Until then, well, you are stuck with where and who you are, so you might as well accept that. Self-acceptance. Acknowledging what is right now, and acknowledging that what is right now is not what will be forever. Radical self-acceptance. That might just be the very thing that gets the wind moving again.