Stuck in a Rut: You Can('t) Get Out of Your Rut
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Good day, good people. I appreciate you for tuning in to another episode of Imperfectly Phenomenal Woman. I'm Lauren, and in each episode, I'm usually out here interviewing everyday women about limiting beliefs that hold us back from living fully and authentically. I started this pod like three years ago at this point and have interviewed over 150 women, reframing all these limiting beliefs so that we can shift our mindset to live the life that we truly want to live.

Every once in a while, I'll get on here and I will do a solo episode. And that's what this is about to be. And the limiting belief that I want to talk about is that you can't get out of your rut. So for the last, I don't know how long it's been. I don't know. It's actually been on and off for a bit. I've just been feeling like I was in a rut, but I'm feeling better now. And so I wanted to share with you some of the things that I realized that

I'm pausing because I hear these birds chirping and it's just really beautiful. I'm really happy that spring is giving spring. It's giving green trees. It's giving flowers. It's giving all of the things that I need. So thank you. The sun is shining on me right now and I am receiving it. Let me have my moment. Thank you. Okay, anyways, in this episode, I want to talk through a few things about rep.

So we're going to talk about acknowledging your feelings rather than pushing them down. We're going to talk about creating a toolkit that you can turn to when you're in your rut. And I'm going to share a journaling exercise that I did that helped me get out of mine. So let's get into it.

I want to start with how I was feeling just in case anyone else might feel similarly. My body felt a little bit numb. I felt like I was continuously holding my breath. I felt lonely. I just felt off. Something felt off. My brain felt full. I was consistently tired.

And I know I was tired. It was because I was working too much. I was genuinely so exhausted. I didn't feel at peace. And...

I am often very aware of my peace and my joy. If you listen to this podcast, you know that about me, but I wasn't feeling good. And so I was like, okay, first thing I needed to do and that I wanted to do was to not suppress these feelings, not ignore these feelings, but to actually like sit with them and look at them to be like, what are you?

and to really get acquainted with how the feelings felt. Like, what am I feeling? So that's my first question to you. If you feel like you're in a rut or if you don't feel right, what are you feeling? Where is it located? Is it in your mind? Like in your brain? Is it in your gut? Like, is it in your shoulders? Are your shoulders really tense? Is it in your jaw? Like, where are you feeling the feelings?

So don't run away from it, lean into it, get to know her. She's trying to tell you something. Now that I'm on the other side of it, I realized that I was feeling those feelings because before I decided to acknowledge them, like I was just sitting in them because I was so busy and sitting in that space of not feeling great wasn't positive. Let's go with that. I realized that I was in the rut because I wasn't trying to get out of the rut.

Like I wasn't trying to do anything about it. I just let it stay there and I let it linger. But I let it stay. I stayed there and I let it linger because I didn't know what to do about it. But I didn't know what to do about it because I was too busy to acknowledge it. Like it was just this whole snowball effect of things. But then when I actually sat down and tried to come up with a plan to improve on all of these negative feelings that I felt because I sat and I also thought about, OK, where are these things stemming from?

Once I tried to figure out what to do about it, then I started to feel better because I felt like I had more control over what was happening and I'm taking action towards shifting it. And I'm like taking a step out of the rut, right? All right, so then yesterday, I decided that I am going to address these issues, right? I'm gonna, I'm going to sit, I'm gonna acknowledge the rut and do something about it. And so I...

dug into my toolkit of things that make me feel better. Like my body knew what I wanted to do, right? And my mind knew what I wanted to do. But oftentimes when you're stuck in a little rut or not feeling great, you choose to do nothing. It often happens, at least for me. I don't know about you, but that's what happens for me. I choose to do nothing. So I decided to listen to the

best parts of me. Let's call her my Oprah, which I call her. I have little names for the people in my head. So Oprah is one of the best parts of me. I had to really tune into what I wanted, what I actually wanted.

And some of the things I wanted, one, I wanted to go to Trader Joe's and do some grocery shopping because let me tell you, grocery shopping makes me, it like, it chills me out. So I went and I made groceries, which I haven't actually done in a very long time. I also went and sat in the park and turned on some good music. I think something that is really, really important that all of us should do is to really have a toolkit of

of go-to things that you do when you aren't feeling great. And you need to have that established even when you are great. And I'm not even gonna say the word great. I'm gonna just use the word good.

So for me, I'm aware of the things that bring me peace and bring me joy. The sound of water just automatically kind of it's almost like a reset button for me and for my spirit, like sitting by some kind of form of water, whether it's a pond, a river, an ocean. I don't care what it is. It is my reset button. It brings me so much peace and I feel so good.

That is a part of my toolkit of building peace. Music. Music has such power to shift your energy. It's wild. For me, if I'm feeling anxious, I might go to, I was just listening to Fleetwood Mac, Thunder Only Happens When It's Raining. That one feels good. If I have a lot of pent up something, I

I actually might listen to some like recently I was listening to Willow Smith. She's got this one song with this heavy metal chick called Purge. So depending when you're feeling going to music to create music,

what you need, I think is helpful for me. For you, it might be knitting. For you, it might be yoga. For you, it might be whatever else. But, and I also need, I know I need to go to bar and do a workout because that's going to help me release some of the stuff that's in me too. But you got to know and build your toolkit of your go-tos. So think about like three things that bring you peace, bring you joy that you can add to your toolkit that if you're in a rut, you're

you know you can go to because you're not going to feel like thinking about what to do. Like if you have it already established, you'll know what to do. So go to those things. So now I want to talk about the journaling prompt. A friend of mine and I, when we were at Columbia, we created like a workshop and I

It just randomly popped in my head yesterday to look at this worksheet again and do it for myself again. And it's made such a difference in how I'm feeling just because it helped me gain some control. It helped give me some perspective on how I'm feeling. And it made me realize that the thoughts that I was having that were causing some of these feelings might not have necessarily been all the way true, you know?

So I want to walk through this worksheet with you just briefly. And if you're interested in, I don't know, if you're interested in even having a session with this, just like hit me up too and we can kind of walk through this worksheet together. I can send it to you. While you're listening to this,

Feel free to pause it if you want to do some journaling and thinking for yourself. You might be in a rut right now. I'm not saying that any of this that I'm saying is a cure-all. So take what you need and leave what you don't. But I'm going to go through this pretty quickly. So we did two parts. There was a life gauging exercise and then there was also a goal setting exercise. So life gauging is to figure out your current state.

And then goal setting is to figure out how, what actions you're going to take to almost like, you

you know, shift where you are now. There's a book called Design Your Life. And if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you've probably heard me reference it when I say our lives are broken down into like four main elements. There's work, love, play, and health. It's the easiest way to explain it when thinking about your current state of being. And so my friend and I, we kind of experienced the world a little bit differently than the creators of that book. They're two Stanford professors, white guys, like...

We just are a little bit more spiritual and, you know, vibey. So...

we created a version that has a few more buckets and refined the buckets to fit what we need and build upon it to actually work for us. So when you're doing life gauging, think about it as the gas gauge on your car where there's the E on the left and the F on the right. And there's that little line in between that tells you where you're at. So think about the E is low and the F is high as I go through each one of these different

So you're taking inventory of where you are by pinpointing where you are on this meter. So the six categories that we talk about are connection, peace, impact, joy, wellness, and other. And I'm going to walk through each one.

So the first one is connection. Think about your current state and how you're feeling about the connections in your life right now. That's your friends, your family, God, your significant other. For me, this was a really important area as to why I was feeling the way that I had been feeling.

So adulting can be hard and kind of separate you from the people that you care about. We're really busy. Like we don't get to connect with people in the way that we want to. And so this area was actually what had me in my rut for the most part. One of the main reasons, it has bits of all of them in my rut, but this was a big one. So...

On your gauge, how are you feeling in terms of your connections? Low, medium, high? Like where would you put that line? Low, medium, or high? And it can be in between those two. So for example, I'm reading the Bible right now, but I still don't necessarily feel super connected to God in a way that I want to. And so I might put that indicator line a little bit closer to low.

because it's not where I wanna be and I'm not happy with it. So for you, with connection with your friends, family, higher source, whatever you might call that for yourself, your romantic relationship, like how are you feeling, low, medium, or high? And go ahead and mark that down or just make a mental note of it. The next category is peace. So that's your mental wellbeing. Do you feel good? Do you feel light? Are you overwhelmed with too many thoughts? Are you crying all the time?

Are you laughing all the time? How are you feeling with your mental health? How would you rate that low, medium, or high? The next one is impact.

And so that could be your career. Are you at a place where you're happy in your career? Do you enjoy the job that you're working at? Do you feel like you're actually in service to others in a way that you want to be in service to others? Is it fulfilling? And you need to answer these in the way that works best for you, not necessarily each of the things that I just said. But when it comes to the impact that you're making, whether you want to count that as career or etc.,

How are you feeling? Low, medium, high, somewhere in the middle. The next one was joy. This was another one where I've been feeling a certain type of way because I want to do more things. I just feel like I don't have time to do more things that bring me joy. Y'all know how I feel about joy. And I don't feel like I have time right now, which is so frustrating.

So this is your hobbies. This is the things that you do for fun. So, for example, I'm a podcaster. Hey, y'all know I've been missing all sorts of episodes out here. If you are a avid listener to this podcast. But here's the thing. I know y'all like give me grace.

So I appreciate that. But at the same time, I wish I was making more episodes. I wish I was more consistent. I wish I was able to travel more. Like what, like where are you located on low, medium or high for joy, your hobbies and things you do for fun? Dancing. That's another thing that I personally want to do. So there's that. The next one is wellness. So that's your physical health.

Are you eating right? Are you sleeping? Are your shoulders tense in this very moment? If they are, relax. But where would you locate yourself for wellness, your physical health? Low, medium, high, somewhere in between. The last one is other. And this is choose your own domain because each one of us,

prioritizes different things. So for you, this might be your relationship with your kids. For you, this might be, I don't know. I don't know what it might be, but you have to choose it for yourself. For me, it's finances. That's because y'all know I moved back home because I'm trying to pay down my student loans. It's top of mind for me right now because I want to get out of debt. So for you, what might your other domain be? Think about it and then market low, medium or high.

So then once you evaluate your current state and you know where you're at, then we go into actually goal setting. And there are four steps to this. So first we pick one area that we're interested in focusing on. For me, I decided to focus on connection because that's the area that I wanted to dig deeper into and really solve because that's what had me in my rut more deeply than the other areas. And then you go into trying to figure out how to get out of that thing.

And this is a true journaling. This is like a true exercise, y'all. So it's a time commitment and you have to really dedicate time to it. So if you do decide to do all this on a deeper level than just listening and kind of like mentally following along, really go to a space that feels good for you. Like,

Even if it's just in your car, you know how we love to sit in the car at the end of a workday and just like not get out? Feel free to use that time. Like find some time where you feel good. For me, it was sitting by the river. But once you choose the domain that you want to dig deeper into, you're going to follow four steps. So you're going to look at it objectively. Mark all the facts. This is facts and data, not feelings, not anything else. Just first look at the facts.

So it's like, how often, this is for connection. How often have you seen your friends lately? How often are you reading your Bible? It's truly facts. And I'm doing this super high level.

Like I said, if you're interested in doing this together, I'm happy to walk through it with you and give you the actual worksheet. So then you're going to reflect on that. What are the emotions that you're feeling when you look at those data points? And I mean, true data points like imagine it as the sun rose at 752 a.m. this morning, like baffling.

data. But now you, once you have that data down, look at it through an emotional lens. How does that data make you feel? You might discover that it's not as bad as you thought. You might discover it's worse than you thought. You might look at it from a completely different angle and you're like, oh, don't think too deep about what it means yet. Still just look at it emotionally. How does it make you feel? Write down the emotions that you're having looking at that data. Next, you're going to

interpret it. Like what the fuck does that mean? So if this data point is happening and it's making me feel this way, then what does that actually mean? And like truly uncover those deeper meanings that you might not have noticed. And then finally you make a decision from there. Like what is it that you can do to move forward?

and choose like just a few options. It could be two or three, two or three action steps that you can take to move forward. So I think for me doing this exercise kind of got me more in touch with how I'm feeling as opposed to just ignoring it or allowing myself to stay busy and not focus on it. And it gave me a way out. And the thing is I gave myself a way out.

You can give yourself a way out. I'm not saying this is going to work for everyone, but there might just be one person out there that this is helpful for. And oftentimes I'm making episodes for one person like in mind, like not that I know who you are, but I just I don't know. I'm OK with making episodes that are only helpful for one person. And oftentimes that one person messages me whoever it's supposed to be for. And I like give a fuck about that. I give a fuck about the one.

So just to go back over some of the things that we said, one, don't run from the feeling, really sit back and accept that you're feeling the way that you are and feel it, get to know it. Where does it stem from? After that, try digging into your toolbox of go-to things of peace and joy. Like I said, for me, that's any type of water is a good reset, some music and a little grocery store run. Yeah.

And then maybe try this journaling exercise where you do the life gauging, looking at connection, peace, impact, joy, maybe one other thing, miscellaneous item, and set your goals by looking at it objectively, reflectively, interpretively, and then make a decision on your path forward.

Take your time. There's no rush to do this, okay? There's no rush to get through it all. There may be something else that you need, you know, to get out of the thing that you're feeling. Like, I don't think a rut and depression are the same thing. They're not. But then again, I'm not a mental health specialist, so who knows? I'm just letting you know what worked for me. And I hope something from this is helpful for you. So anyways, if you want to connect with

Feel free to DM me at IP woman podcast on Insta on Twitter. I don't really post, but I'm on the pages enough to see if people are messaging. So feel free to message me.

Something I heard recently that I've kind of been living by are that like humans are just complicated plants. And I agree with that. So if you're not feeling great, go outside, just sit outside for a little bit. See if that oxygen does something good for you. You are doing better than you think you are. You are stronger than you think you are. You are capable of so much more than you ever imagined. And I will talk to y'all next week or the week after that if we being real.

And I'm wishing you the best. Farewell.