by Cole Putman

I equate stuckness with Pooh Bear. I mean wasn’t his experience absolutely riddled with times where he was stuck? In a snowstorm, in a honey jar, in the hollow of a tree. His tendency to get stuck is one of the reasons I have always related to him. That along with his gentle curiosity and fervent love for honey and friendship. Also, who doesn’t love a red crop top?

Maybe you, much like Pooh Bear, have felt stuck recently. Stuck in old patterns despite it being a new year. Stuck in Covid isolation, or in your own snowstorm. Throughout the past few years, I have no doubt most of us have been acquainted with this feeling of stuckness. 

How easy is it in those moments to feel anxious or agitated or even derailed from life? To begin to imagine you will never not be stuck, to go immediately go into problem-solving mode to get un-stuck. 

But the thought came to me recently: what if stuckness is an invitation to stillness? What if, instead of going full force into problem-solving mode, I take a second to slow down, breathe, and embrace the stillness that stuckness can offer?  

In one of my favorite podcast episodes, Oprah Winfrey interviews Iyanla Vanzant, and Iyanla offers the following line: 

“When you find yourself in a new situation, in a new circumstance, a new life experience... Everything that requires healing is going to rush to the surface. And if you don’t take a minute to breathe, to gather yourself... You will do what you have always done. You have to be clear enough, grounded enough, centered enough to say, ‘How am I going to handle it this time?’ The lesson is: pause.”

I have applied this concept of “the pause” during my own moments of stuckness, and it has led to my suspicion that stuckness is really just stillness in disguise. 

When I sense the agitation or panic that comes with stuckness, I immediately stop for a breath and to acknowledge I have a choice in how I respond to the situation. I remind myself that even if this situation feels like a previous one, I have tools now that I did not have then. Most importantly, I slow down. And from that place of slow stillness, I feel much more able to navigate the stuckness in a deliberate, creative way. 

I’ll leave you with these words of Mary Oliver’s that I believe are a testament to the power of stillness: 

“I hardly move though really I'm traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.” From Today in A Thousand Mornings