Breaking out of a loop

 

What do you understand by physical loops? A circular place or thing that connects the beginning and its end and can go on and on. But what do we mean by mental loops? Let’s see if I can explain myself with an example. I pick up a book and read it for a while, then I switch to look at my mobile, then I switch to look from one app to another. I switch to my book again and there goes the cycle. Have you ever been in such a situation? I am confused as to what kind of a behavior is this. It is really frustrating to watch myself get stuck in such loops. And bam! There goes my hour which was supposed to be fruitful. All this builds up a lot of tension and stress. Right now, I’m just going to go take a short walk to the kitchen to have a glass of water and see if it breaks this loop.

Well, I sat in a different spot, had water and a very short conversation with myself. Almost like a pep talk before I resume penning my thoughts. I did some light breathing exercises to calm my anxiety. I plugged in the music and now I’m back to writing. 10 minutes up and I still haven’t written a word. There is a bookmark lying next to me on the table that is asking me to “be my own rainbow”. I smile at it, and now I feel I’m ready. Some time back, I figured out that if I don’t have a motivation, I won’t be able to move as fast towards my goal as I’d like to. These moments make me slow and my thoughts become undisciplined. That’s when my thoughts start switching along with the actions associated with it. That’s when my productivity goes down and approaches zero. And this is when I start getting thoughts of anxiety and restlessness. Can you relate to it?

Whenever you face such situations, I find it fruitful to change my physical space. Take some water, or get your favorite snack, or plug in some music, or change your clothes, or de-clutter that desk which you always wanted to do, or just throw a stick for your dog to fetch. Do anything that will give quick results with least amount of efforts. In my case, talking has rarely helped as I always end up talking about what’s troubling me and I find that it is too much work to explain these complicated feelings. But if you have a favorite person, go hug it out. Such moments make me realize that it’s okay to invest in yourself to snap out of such loops. It makes you go slow sometimes, but the important thing is to keep going. Yes, it is frustrating to see so many efforts and time being spent in prepping ourselves. But that is the whole point here, that you prepared yourself.