Escaping the quicksand

Not sure how to get from here to there? We all feel that way from time to time. But what if it keeps building and building and building? What if that feeling of helplessness and loss of control won't go away? What if you feel as if you are just thrashing away like.....someone caught in ....quicksand? The past few months have been particularly stressful.....so much so that it has been difficult to keep up with everything we 'need'to do....instead we have merely done what we had to do and everything else has fallen to the wayside. Thinking about it today, I began to think....it's like quicksand.....the more you struggle ...the more you sink.

Quicksand (Used by Stephen Hayes) When we’re stuck in quicksand, the immediate impulse is to struggle and fight to get out. But that’s exactly what you mustn’t do in quicksand – because as you put weight down on one part of your body (your foot), it goes deeper. So the more you struggle, the deeper you sink – and the more you struggle. Very much a no-win situation. With quicksand, there’s only one option for survival. Spread the weight of your body over a large surface area – lay down. It goes against all our instincts to lay down and really be with the quicksand, but that’s exactly what we have to do. So it is with distress. We struggle and fight against it, but we’ve perhaps never considered just letting it be, and being with the distressing thoughts and feelings, but if we did, we’d find that we get through it and survive – more effectively than if we’d fought and struggled.

Lay down....let the stress just 'be'....allow it to flow away from you as you spread the 'weight' out and distance yourself from the quicksand.

And so it is with the day to day events that threaten to swallow us whole...do we need to fight them? Do we need to struggle against them? Perhaps not. Perhaps our best option is to 'spread our weight out and find the balance that will carry us from the grips of the quicksand.

So the next time you feel as if you are being swallowed whole by stress.....stop fighting....just be....and allow yourself to be released from the grips of the quicksand.