Dr. Dara Bushman is a psychologist and author who appears on numerous media outlets sharing expertise on COVID counseling, trauma, and wellness. She lives in Asheville, NC. This is a contributor-submitted Voices piece. Want to join the conversation? We invite you to write for us. Learn how to share your voice here.

Dear anyone that has ever experienced feeling stuck–So, Dear everyone with a heartbeat,

How are you? Like, really how are you? It has been a hot second since I wrote to you. I was feeling stuck. Not literally where my hands wouldn't work, but might as well have been because my brain was not transferring information to my fingers and onto the keyboard. I couldn’t even get my tush to sit down to attempt it. Everything else felt more important and easier. Life was getting in my way, but in reality, I was in my own way.

I could blame it on the pandemic. Or like Milli Vanilli, I could blame it on the rain! There is no doubt the pandemic continues to overshadow things. But, pandemic or no pandemic there will always be a crisis, some chaos, or something that blocks us or diverts our attention from our intentions. The pandemic was the straw that broke the camel's back (never quite understood that expression!).

In the midst of my own personal living life-ness, I virtually met with my editor, coach and literary goddess genius (wink wink at you Lesley). We had this amazing meeting with great feedback. She excitedly told me how well I was writing and the progress I was making. Somehow, my brain misconstrued that to mean I was not writing good enough or finishing the book fast enough. And yes, I am still at the book writing thing. I thought like most things , I would set a goal to write a book and then a New York Times best seller would pop out as easy as my children did. Wrong! In my experience, writing a book is much harder!

My stuckness was not about the session I had with Lesley. The foundation underneath it was that I was not having grace for myself. I was so busy focusing on what I wasn’t doing, I lost perspective of what I was doing. I didn’t account for the fact that I maintained my stream of consciousness by writing at 5am, the additions I made in my schedule, the different needs of my family, blah, blah, blah, OR that sometimes I want to binge watch Netflix or NOT DO A DAMN THING!

In the muck of the sticky icky, feeling, I am stuck, I suck… guess what, the miracle cure, the game shiFter, was that I did not have to do anything to change the ick or FIX IT. I am a damn human being, not a human doing. I moved to Asheville to slow down–smell the roses. Maybe, just maybe, the conflict of not completing what I thought I should, is exactly where I needed to be. I needed to do NOTHING! I needed to put my writing in the F*ck It Bucket! I needed to let what was important stay at the top of the strainer in the sand bucket and let whatever was self-deprecating, soul crushing and dumb sift away. (Ask me more about the life changing F*ck It Bucket!) When you do nothing, you are doing everything!

Any hooo, I am over the stuckness with an epiphany that progress is better than perfection. Don’t get me wrong, I have a head full of judgment and I stroke the keyboard shoulding all over myself while writing this. I decided all I needed to do is to start a document, then put my best effort to write the worst possible page of syllables and vowels ever! Sounds silly, right? But truth be told, I was stuck because I kept thinking whatever I wrote had to be perfect. I internalized it and built it up in my head. The more I freaked out about it, the more I pulled back from it.

Like a late night infomercial, “but wait, there is more”. Let me share my other hack. For the past week when I did morning journaling, I wrote 10 times like a naughty child being told to write on the chalkboard...I AM A WRITER, I AM A WRITER, I DO HARD THINGS, I AM A WRITER.

It is not realistic to live without stuckness, but it does not require suffering. The old saying, “no pain, no gain” is not applicable to the amount of torment we have to endure in order to move forward in our lives.

Reminder, the pandemic is a magnifier of all the drama or underlying concerns before March 13th, 2020. Stuckness is inevitable and you are not defined by your stuckness. It is only a phase you were experiencing. AND, nothing changes if nothing changes. Stuckness is the moment before movement.

Tips to unstick sucky stuckness…

Do nothing

- Put it in the F*ck it Bucket

Keep showing up despite how you feel

- Write or do the worst possible job you can do!

Fake it until you make it

- I am a ___. I do hard things.

Warmly,

Your no bull-shiFt, advice giving, shame-abolishing, health advocating, Mom, Psychologist and wife,

Dr. Dara