Blog: Being in-between

Not sure what you're doing with your life? Feeling stuck, unfulfilled, off-purpose? Having a full-blown existential crisis? You're in the right place...

Between a Block and a Hard Place

How to get unblocked when you can’t move forwards

I’m feeling completely blocked with my writing at the moment, which makes this blog very personal but also quite challenging to complete.

I’ve spent hours staring into an empty Word document with a solitary blinking cursor. I feel like my word faucet is turned off. At best, it’s operating at a slow drip that’s sufficient for replying to an email or coming up with a low-grade pun, but not much more.

It’s not that I haven’t been trying. I scheduled multiple chunks of time devoted to writing. And during them, I managed to make a significant dent in a range of unrelated items on my administrative to-do list. I started to do everything but the thing that needed doing.

I watched dozens of bird videos on Instagram (the umbrella bird is fascinating!). I paid a visit to the graveyard that is my Whatsapp (where messages go to die) and resurrected a few. I even started online shopping (one of my least favourite chores) until I realised I was about to make a purchase from a company called Bloch. Ouch.

The blocked-blog situation this week became so dire that I considered sending out a post entitled “Feeling blocked” which would contain… nothing. I could have argued the case for artistic license? But at last, here we are. Words are coming out! I wouldn’t go as far as to say the dam that is my writer’s block has broken, but it’s definitely been punctured.

What to do when you’re stuck

Blocks are annoying! They’re impediments between us and our objectives. They interrupt our flow. And of course, they seem to crop up shortly after we’ve made a transition into a new pathway, just when we’re building some momentum, and especially when there’s an important deadline to meet.

It’s tempting to want to be in a constant flow state: to feel continual motion toward our goals. Wouldn’t it be nice if life was easy, peaceful, smooth?

But it’s not. We all get blocked from time to time and sometimes the prunes just aren’t enough. When we hit a wall, how do we continue to move forwards?

Know Your Block

How to deal with your block depends on what’s driving it.

It’s helpful to become curious about your particular block. What does it look like? Where is it coming from? What thoughts and feelings arise as you think about it? Without judgment, try to observe and identify any patterns or themes that emerge. Perhaps it’s highlighting a fear, a desire, or a lack of clarity around your goals.

Blocks can happen for all sorts of reasons, including when:

your heart isn’t truly aligned to the task. Maybe it’s a false objective – it’s not what you want to do. Perhaps you feel moral discomfort or disconnection
your heart is fully aligned to the task – it’s exactly what you want to do, and yet you’re experiencing a resistance. Maybe your fears or limiting beliefs are popping up: familiar voices might include: you’re not good enough, it’s not worth it, ChatGPT can do it better, etc
you’re tired, sick, or lacking energy to power through the task
you’re confused about what you want to do or who you are
you don’t have enough information, skills or support to move forwards.

Block and Roll

Once you know your block, you have the power to decide what to do about it. I believe there are two main approaches to unblocking:

First, to try to remove it: to push through and persevere to reach your objective. How can I eliminate this block?

Second, to acknowledge the block is there and accept it without resistance. How can this block be helpful for me?

Approach 1: Remove or push through the block

“You have to keep it flowing, if you halt it the wave will crash.” – Mitch Hedberg

The block removal approach is the darling of writers like Julia Cameron and my favourite comedian, Mitch Hedberg. Their perspective is that facing a blank page is intimidating: so like a woodpecker, tap away at the block bit by bit. (Sidenote: woodpeckers hammer away at up to 12,000 pecks a day… did I mention about my bird video binge?)

In a writing context, block removal proponents suggest doing a daily stream of consciousness brain dump, journalling whatever comes to mind, even if it’s “I can’t think of anything to write.” At some point, the nothing becomes something (check out this excerpt from Hedberg’s journal, which also offers a fascinating insight into how his comedic mind worked).

Mitch Hedberg’s journal excerpt: https://i.imgur.com/15vMLqr.jpg

Applied more generally, the block removal approach favours relentlessly doing something even if nothing seems to be happening as a result. As Steven Pressfield said, “Put your ass where your heart wants to be.” Show up. Sit down. Do the work.

I decided to try this method out, and write without being attached to the final product being a blog on blocks. What came out instead was the draft text of a stand-up comedy set. Not quite what I needed for today, but also – I was no longer blocked.

I think that trying to remove or push through the block can work well when the underlying cause is fear, confusion, challenge or a lack of creative inspiration. But it’s not the only approach, nor is it always helpful.

Approach 2: Respect the block

“Flow is overrated. Stuck is an innovative process.” - Arawana Hayashi

Blocks are part of the natural ebb and flow of movement in life. Rather than ignoring, resisting or fighting them, we can also accept them. By allowing the blocks to be there, we can become open and curious as to what happens in their presence. This, of course, requires a surrendering of control and an openness to being rerouted.

Our acceptance of blocks can facilitate our creativity. It can prompt us to go in a different direction from the one we intended, and the resulting experimentation can lead us to gain new perspectives. We might try out different activities, communities, foods, or films. We might turn left where we used to turn right. That’s the recipe for ideation!

As a personal example, I’d decided to prioritise training as a dancer, and had enrolled in regular classes. And then I found myself with a Grade 2 ankle ligament tear and hobbling around on crutches: blocked! Rather than try and push through, I accepted my block – and found myself rerouting my passion for music into learning to DJ. Two months later, I’ve got weekly gigs playing music at parties. It’s proof that blocks can propel us in new, unexpected directions!

Sometimes blocks signal that something isn’t working, or that it’s time for rest. When we’re feeling burnt out, tired or unwell, then pressuring ourselves to push through is not only unlikely to solve the problem but it may also damage our health and wellbeing. Instead of reaching for the caffeine, paracetamol or aid of choice, this is a time to slow down, stop, and recharge.

Last night, I was determined to finish a full draft of this blog but was exhausted; after writing this section, I took my own advice and went to bed early. I didn’t meet my goal, but I respected my body’s needs. Sometimes it’s time to stop.

Unblock me!

Feeling blocked is a natural part of the transition process, but it can spell the end of new beginnings by preventing us from moving forwards with our objectives. It can lead to frustration, stagnancy and complacency.

To get unblocked, the first step is to become curious about what's causing the block. Once you understand what's going on, you can choose the best approach to move forwards.

Whether it's to remove it or push through the pain, or accept it without resistance, the key is to keep moving forward. And who knows - you might even discover a hidden talent in the process. Maybe we’ll meet on the stand-up comedy stage!

Reflection:

When you’re feeling blocked, how can you retain your sense of curiosity, wonder or awe with your objective? How can you make the process more fun?

If you were to view ‘blocked’ as a creative state, what might shift for you? (Thanks to Danielle for this suggestion!)

Meditation:

Observe your habits during a blocked state. What are you doing, thinking and feeling? What is desirable or accessible to you at this moment? What happens if you give in to those impulses?

I would love to hear your reflections, questions and puns!

Please share them with me.

Why we relapse to a subpar past during Transitions

How to avoid the Nostalgia Trap

Humans love reminiscing about the past.

We go nuts for nostalgia. Think about the popularity of ‘reminiscence therapy’ at senior care homes; the commercial success of university reunions; and the revitalisation of cringe-worthy music from our youth that we no longer like but can’t resist singing. (This happened to me last night when I heard this song playing).

When we’re recounting a story about our past, we tend to make a few tweaks. Like in photography, we focus on the best aspects, filter out the undesirable negatives and add a few embellished special effects. Selective edits cast the past in a better light than it deserves.

Our tendency to romanticise the past makes for fascinating story times with grandparents.

But it can also complicate our ability to follow through on an intended Big Change in our lives. Feeling a strong, magnetic pull to the past can lead us to try to reverse that change, no matter how illogical, destructive or impossible that might be.

"You're rekindling the relationship with your ex-partner? But you said you had nothing in common and couldn’t stand each other!" "You're going back to your old job? But you hated it! You'd been trying to quit for years before you finally resigned!" "You wish you were a teenager again? But you were angry, depressed and couldn’t wait to grow up!"

A familiar story?

If not, get some more honest friends. It's human nature to edit the way we recall our pasts, and we have built-in cognitive biases that help us do this more easily.

Biased against Cognitive Bias

Cognitive biases are sneaky subconscious errors in our thinking. Having them is like being in a co-dependent relationship: they’re responsible for much of our human irrationality, but we rely on them to simplify and make sense of the complex world.

We have at least three cognitive biases that help us convince ourselves that life was better before a Transition:

The Decline Bias: we don't usually like change - even when it's desperately needed. And when that change happens, we tend to prefer the way things were before. Hence the 'good old days' effect.
The Confirmation Bias: we search for and focus on information that confirms our worldview. We're so good at doing this that when we're presented with solid facts that challenge our beliefs, we often strengthen our previous false convictions. …Politics…
The Narrative Bias: we create stories and patterns out of the information we receive, so that it makes sense. If any of the facts don't support our story, we dismiss them. We like a neat, linear, logical cause-effect relationship.

Thanks to our cognitive wiring, even if we make a change that we desperately want, we have a strong built-in tendency to question it. We tend to prefer our life before the change; selectively recall information that supports that false preference; and then create a seamless story that ties it all together neatly. We align our narrative with the perception of ‘self’ that our ego wants to have, and how we're feeling and behaving at that time we recount it. During a transition, this revising process leads us to the Nostalgia Trap: one of the many magnetic pulls back to our old, familiar lives. Enter reversal, regression, relapse.

How to avoid the nostalgia trap

“Nostalgia is a seductive liar.” – George Ball

If you’ve fallen into the nostalgia trap, and have returned straight back to where you started on your transition journey, be kind to yourself. It’s a subconscious process, and (like most things) it's much easier to notice when somebody else has done it!

Awareness is a critical first step. Being aware of our cognitive biases allows us to examine our decision-making processes from different angles, and challenge our thinking. Perceptive friends, coaches and most mothers can also help us see our situations with a more accurate mirror.

Second, we can try to incorporate our feelings when we retell stories. Our emotional memories are often more accurate than our filtered thoughts.

Third, we can try to stay focused in the present moment rather than looking backwards. If we made a change, we need to trust that we did it for a good reason; and if the change was forced upon us, we need to let go of the belief we can reverse it. Of course, not looking back is easier said than done, a la Orpheus and Eurydice.

Fourth, journaling can be a helpful way to capture our thoughts and feelings, albeit knowing they'll already be partially revised. It’s useful to write down the rationale for our decisions to make a change (or for those changes forced upon us, to accept them). We can refer back to these notes if we start to question our decision-making or need a little emotional boost. This record also serves as a snapshot of how we were thinking and feeling as a pre-change iteration of ourselves. We can look back at our notes later, and be reminded of our courage in deciding to make a change. Journals are an excellent nostalgic relic for our later years!

The Myth of a True Story: Look Back with Caution

"A popular misconception is that we can't change the past - everyone is constantly changing their own past, recalling it, revising it. What really happened? A meaningless question. But one I keep trying to answer, knowing there is no answer.” - Margaret Laurence, Spear of Innocence, The Diviners

After making a big change, it's normal to feel a sense of unease or even regret about the decision. At some point, most of us will think the grass was greener beforehand.

Being more aware of our biased decision-making patterns, incorporating our feelings, staying present and recording our thoughts can help us maintain our commitment to change when we're tested.

Clearly, a lot of cognitive and emotional labour is required to follow through with a Major Life Transition - hence the need to conserve energy and move slowly.

Remember the good old days, before you read this blog? Wasn’t life so much better before you started to question the accuracy of your past narratives?

Reflection

Write a letter to yourself outlining the reasons you've decided to make, or have made, a Big Change in your life. You can also record a voice note, draw, or use whatever modality best allows you to express and clearly capture your feelings and thoughts. Try to be as honest and inclusive as possible.

Meditation

When you’re talking about an event that happened in the past, try to focus on your feelings. Often they’re more accurate than our filtered thoughts. How were you feeling before the Big Change? How do you feel now?

I would love to hear your reflections, questions and puns!

Please share them with me.

6 Tips to Avoid Existential Crisis During Transitions

How to approach identity when you're not sure who you are

“What do you do?”

This popular question among strangers would probably make the ‘Most Annoying’ shortlist after “How are you?” and “Do you know why I pulled you over today?”

Regardless of whether it’s asked directly, or framed around passions (‘What makes you come alive?’) or interests (‘How do you spend your time?’), it’s all the same underlying query. People want to know: Who are you?

n five minutes or less though. Because either they don’t really care or they’re in a rush to be more time efficient because they didn’t read my last blog.

Who am I?

I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how to introduce myself. What linear narrative of how I got from ‘there’ to ‘here’ would be captivating? Which keywords would signal my worthiness? Which buzzwords would tick mental boxes? (These days it’s trendy to say “spiritual” or “creative”). Introductions were like verbal arts and crafts, a creative storytelling game.

I love games! I wanted to learn how to play. I went to ‘personal branding’ sessions and refined my social media headlines, taglines… and all the other lines. I rehearsed my ‘elevator pitch’: how to capture my essence in the time it takes for an average elevator ride. (Sidenote: the ‘elevator pitch’ needs a new name; people rarely make eye contact, let alone speak, in an elevator. Even when they know each other).

I honed my response to being asked who I was, until I had a prepared, manufactured identity to recite at networking events, social functions, and to myself in the mirror when I needed a reminder.

My resulting introduction, like that of many founders, was strongly identified with the organisation I started. I thought it was an extension of me, but it seems that I became an extension of it too.

I didn’t view that as a problem until I left my job and experienced a major health trauma that left me struggling to work.

I began to dread being asked to introduce myself.

Navigating my Ex-It

For the first few months after leaving my career, I maintained the same introduction, just applying ‘ex’ to the title. Ex-CEO. But I didn’t feel comfortable talking about my career or defining myself by my past: my work and life plans were still crystallising, and I was fumbling my way through a never-ending concussion. Ultimately I went with, “I’m in a transition.” I updated my LinkedIn heading appropriately. That seemed to satisfy everyone and gave me breathing room.

But a crack had formed in the identity shell I’d manufactured. And slowly, the whole of it started to crumble. This was deeply uncomfortable. So I moved straight into action – right into the Doing Trap (which seems to be my favourite trap, given how many times I’ve fallen into it).

My Identity Experiment

Being disconnected from my sense of self felt like being naked and in desperate need to put on some clothes before I could be seen in public.

I conducted an ‘identity experiment’, immersing myself in communities with which I used to identify. I spent a week with entrepreneurs, exploring myself dressed up in this identity – fun, but not quite right. Then I switched to social justice activists – inspiring, but not my size. I then planted myself amongst coaches – rewarding, but didn’t click. Each costume change brought me some aspect of connection to ‘self’, but none carried that feeling of unity that was Just Right. I was an unsatisfied Goldilocks.

I’d fallen into another trap: looking outward to find what was inward.

Instead of changing my outer garments, I had to brave metaphorical nudity. Even without a ‘work identity’ outfit, I was still wearing layers upon layers of other identity labels produced by demographics, societal conditioning, beliefs, values etc. I felt like an infinite onion: every time I removed one identity layer, another would appear underneath. And another. I was searching and searching and still not finding my ‘core’. Instead I discovered a multiplicity of parts of self, often paradoxical, and mutually exclusive. I became utterly confused about who I was. And at some point, I let go.

Oddly enough, that place of complete surrender to needing to be attached to my identity felt calming. And also, alarming. I wrote in my journal that it was as if “a strong gust of wind blew directly toward me with such force that it pulverised my body, disintegrated my physical shell, carried it all away. But there was still something that remained: my core, my “I”, a sense of “self”: there, warm, strong, intact, felt, and impossible to vocalise in words.”

I did not dissolve into the ether. Instead, I fully arrived in Transition: the in-between space, the void, the place of No Identity. Which prompted a good, old-fashioned existential crisis.

Transitions and Identity Crises

An identity crisis is like covid: as hard as we try to protect ourselves, we are all likely to have it at some point. Some of us again and again... and again.

Existential crises often accompany moments of major life transitions: retirement, mid-life, even quarter-life (and the youngest generation seems to be splurging with an eighth-life one). During transitions, something fundamental within us changes.

It’s enough to modify or lose even one small part of our identity, to threaten the whole of it. “A person’s identity is not an assemblage of separate affiliations, nor a kind of loose patchwork; it is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound.” - Amin Maalouf

The more closely affiliated or dependent we are on a singular identity label, the more affected we will be if we lose it. In the Western world, where we’re assessed based on our productivity, this tends to be work. What we do becomes a core component of who we are. Our output is our worth. But the same problem exists for any identity tag to which we become attached: roles, activities, demographics, relationships, status – or vaccine stance (a trending one among hippies, I’m finding).

An existential crisis: what’s the point?

Is an existential crisis a necessary component of major life transitions? Perhaps. But there’s a way to lessen the magnitude. If you feel a little more nihilistic than usual, here are some suggestions to retain your sense of self:

1. Diminish attachment to any one aspect of self. Have you formed a principal identity? Be aware of one or several overriding affiliations becoming more important than any other aspect. You will still retain your sense of ‘self’ even without being an athlete, musician, founder, parent, spouse, foodie - or believe it or not – a lover of this blog. The more enmeshed our identities are with a role, person, belief or behaviour, the more vulnerable we are to an existential crisis.

2. See the self as a composite of countless aspects. Set aside the words and narratives you normally use to describe yourself. Instead of focusing on your ‘usual suspect’ labels, get to know the parts that feel more distant or unfamiliar. See yourself from multiple angles, perspectives and time periods. Give yourself the spaciousness to be anything. One overarching identity is “a violent constriction of our expansiveness” (Maalouf).

3. Approach a change in identity with curiosity. When we lose an aspect of our identity, we might feel pain. While our first instinct might be to run, it is much more beneficial to investigate that feeling: where is it coming from? What underpins it? There is a natural grieving process that occurs when we lose a sense of self, and that is best honoured with our present and compassionate attention.

4. Treat identity as transient. We can have a tendency to look at our identities as static or absolute, but they’re not. They’re fluid and dynamic, as is the relationship between aspects of self. The beautiful curiosity is the evolution that connects our current and childhood selves.

5. Acknowledge the latent paradoxes in our identities. Even if we take a behavioural trait that we think defines us – for example, ‘caring’ – do we always behave this way? No. We can be caring. But sometimes, we’re uncaring too. Those of us who self-define as always open-minded are already close-minded. A mindset embracing paradox allows for the inner conflict of identities torn in diverging directions at the same time.

6. Let go of the need to have a narrative. Instead of trying to comprehend our identity, allow it to reveal itself. Identity forms through a dynamic interaction with life. There’s an unfolding process to it. We acquire our identity; we don’t just become aware of it.

Moments of transition are a unique opportunity to embrace an expansiveness in identity. Viewed this way, it’s more like an existential opportunity. There doesn’t need to be a crisis (unless you want to identify with drama in which case, enjoy it).

Bye Bye Bio

I was discussing the topic of identity with a retired man.

I asked him: “How would you answer the question, ‘What do you do?’”

“Whatever I want!” he said.

“How about, ‘Who are you?’”

“I’m a component of the greater ‘is’.

“What does that mean?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” he replied. And we laughed.

---

Reflection 1: When you ask people to introduce themselves, what is it that you really want to know? What’s underneath the question?

Reflection 2: How do you present your ‘self’ to others? When you’re asked to introduce yourself, what do you say? What do you write in your biography or social media profile, if you have one? (Notice mention of labels, roles, activities, affiliations, achievements, beliefs, values, hobbies, etc). How attached do you feel to the nouns or adjectives used? It may be useful to test your emotional attachment by describing yourself as having the opposite identity (e.g. for me: “I don’t write. I don’t dance. I hate cookies.”) What comes up somatically in your body?

Reflection 3: Imagine your life unbound by narratives. How would you introduce yourself without telling a story?

Meditation to reconnect with sense of self: Visualise an encounter with your childhood self at an age before societal conditioning had a strong footprint. What did you love to do as a child? How did you prefer to spend your time? What did you talk about?