Done Languishing? Wanna Be Starting Something
In The New York TImes, February 13, 2022 essay, “You’ve Done Self Care. You’ve Languished. Now Try This,,” Brad Stulberg, Executive Coach, suggests that the time for languishing is over. Time for us to get unstuck with a psychological technique: behavioral activism. And what is that?
Basically, time to get up off your butt and DO something that jacks you up. If you can break the orbit of inertia, it gets easier and easier to keep moving. Be kind to yourself as you try to break the spell. Resilience is born of having compassion during tough times; compassion for others and self.
Hardly rocket science. But here we are. Wanna be starting something?
From the article:
““The Power of Positive Thinking” argu[ed]— we now know, falsely — that if you just think positive thoughts and suppress negative ones, you’ll gain health, wealth and happiness. If anything, research has shown that those strategies often backfire: The more you try to change how you feel, the more stuck in your current mood you’re likely to end up. As much as you might want to, you cannot control your thoughts or feelings….
Just as rest and languishing can create inertia that builds on itself, action and energy can be self-reinforcing. It just takes some extra work to overcome the initial stasis and friction — it can feel like the laws of physics apply to our psyches, too….
Overcoming the inertia of languishing requires fierce self-discipline — and a fierce compassion for oneself. You may think of these two qualities as opposites, but they are not. Research shows that being kind to yourself during hardships and challenges can increase resilience and strength.”