12 Ways to ‘Snap Out of It’
Self-Liberation Made Easy and Essential.
So there I was on my toilet, snapping myself ‘out of it’. Call it an autumn depression of a kind. Basically, I caught myself in moody thinking and realized I had a choice. I snapped myself out of it. Went back to body awareness and then tended to some kitchen clean-up. And went back to be in my head, but now thinking about ways to ‘snap yourself out of it’. This is the result of that thinking, based on personal experiences and spiritual traditions made simple.
Caught in a Web
Many of us feel not fully alive. Many often feel caught or imprisoned by a double bind that keeps them postponing action. “I want to stand up for this outrage, but I need to pay the rent/fear getting fired.” “I’m such a loser. (You’re not. Society is mad.) What difference can I make?” Etc. Dark thoughts, worry, and depression. Self-victimization. Meanwhile, life passes by. Many people experience a lack of aliveness while enduring, whatever pain they’re suffering from. Especially heavy thoughts and no action can wear people down. From personal debts and meaningless jobs to global warming, what can we do to liberate ourselves and make the difference we seek? Doing more of the same and staying put won’t make a difference.
‘Snap Out of It!’
Self-liberation has been a great thing throughout history. Change begins within. It begins with the willingness to see, to observe and conclude, and to act on findings. Yet all too often we don’t know what we could do, or every fantasy of action leads to freezing up because of visions of ‘what might happen’. Snap out of that.
Here are 12 shortcuts from various spiritual wisdom traditions and modern insights you can use:
1. Be Here Now!
When caught in thought, snap your fingers. Literally, snap yourself out of it. Return to here and now in your body. Feel your butt, feet or listen to the world around you. Just be present. Then do what matters now. Mind you, at the least 95% present of all your thoughts is nonsense anyway. This is the basis of all meditation practices: be present with what is here and now. Snip!
2. Breathe
Focus on your breathing. If snapping yourself into the here and now wasn’t enough, then meditate. Just breath and stay consciously aware you’re doing it. There many ways to meditate. It might be the most widespread and oldest method for self-improvement, or, when things don’t change, for acceptance. Meditation brings wisdom, through a healthy distance from self-destructive thinking and deeper being in touch with the world as a whole. Meditate.
3. Accept it hurts
Too often we just don’t want to feel the pain. It hurts. So we hide pain under fake smiles, distractions, storytelling laying the blame elsewhere, or depressed thinking. Yes, thinking isn’t feeling. We can’t really move forward when we don’t acknowledge the pain we’re feeling, whether it’s for a death in the family, terrible bosses, or the state of the planet. So only when we acknowledge the pain and its message can we start transforming it. Accept it.
And stop judging yourself! I have to add, that when I had depressions I found that rather than worry about them, I better accept them. So I stopped being anxious about not producing anything. The second I started to judge myself I’d stop that idiot thinking. I trusted my body needed some rest, beyond my understanding. So now rather than think about it, I watch a good movie or play or write, forgetting everything else. And much sooner than ever before I get out of it. I now have short periods I hibernate without guilt. Very calming. Probably very natural too, as we are biological beings. Accept it.
The following tips you can do on your own or (share) with others.
4. Play
If you can play with something, it means you’re free with it. Play is how nature invented learning. Playfulness creates a healthy aliveness and gets you in touch with the ‘possibility field’ or your creativity. It gives you options, fun and, freedom; all because you choose to play with or in your situation. This includes tactics such as turning a bad situation into an advantage. So play with it, make fun of it, act it out, make a game out of it. Or find friends to play with. Make a little movie, dance, make art, play a game. Play.
5. Do Bodywork
We mostly get caught in situations, because we aren’t present in our body. We get caught in lousy circular logic. We imprison ourselves in negative frames or let others talk us into them. But the mind is only a small part of our system. Each of us is mostly body, and this body has a lot of wisdom. It notices a lot of things our thinking can’t. Therefore bodywork is training in being present, and much sharper noticing what’s going on. Thus train your body. Dance.
6. Sing about it
When you can do tip 5 you can do 6. Many singers became world-famous because of turning pain into art. It may not solve the problems, it may not even make them lighter. If singing (or any artistic expression) doesn’t help heal you, very often it helps heal others. Yet, I found singing my anguish in my own house, makes me feel alive. It makes me feel this human experience is all worth it. And that, my friends, is what being alive means; living and expressing being alive. Sing.
The next tips you can only do with, or for, others.
7. Build Relationships
Many people who are hurting stow themselves away. So many people also confuse personal pain and collective pain. Consider it’s not only your kid who is hurting in school, many parents share that worry. You’ll find out when you share your worries. You might find the system itself is sick. This goes for many of our problems. Through building relationships we discover friends, helpers, like-minded people in similar circumstances and we create deeper connections. Those are often in themselves part of healing. Make Friends.
8. Question It.
We can accept our situation or question it. Our ‘normal’ is often already kind of crazy for others. Or as the fools say it, ‘everyone is somebody else’s fool’. This means everyone will have people pointing at them, claiming they live ridiculously. Better than to dig in, is to start asking questions about everything, even the most basic things. You may discover something new about yourself or your society. And all that curiosity leads to learning, insight, and action. Question everything.
9. Walk Out
Sometimes things suck and you can’t do anything about them. Sometimes people end up in deadening jobs or lives. We have may make up many reasons to stay, for safety mostly. But who wants to die with regrets? The worst regret it has been said is to die without having expressed the deeper, more real, self in this world. What makes you come alive? If that is something elsewhere, with other people, then build up the courage and go for it. Walk out.
And the last three are about forgetting yourself and put another center stage.
10. Be a Hero
Action heroes in movies overcome the odds by two simple traits. Firstly, they never give up. Secondly, they actively look around to see how they can help themselves and others out of a certain mess. They are truly being awake in the moment. They give no focus on what is wrong with them, ask no questions about meaning and reasons. They act in the now, strictly looking for pragmatic solutions. And thus liberate themselves and often many others from some mess. Act now.
11. Help Others
Probably the biggest prison is too much focus on Self. “I should be happy.” “I want attention.” “I deserve a break.” All that leads to is a pumped-up ego. Our inner worlds are labyrinths. Working on self often turns out to be a minefield to get lost in, for life. Much easier is it to get back to happiness helping others. Even random acts of kindness boost positive hormones. So helping is good for you, good for others, good for everyone. Why not try it? Make a difference.
12. Help the World
All in all, our current world is in a mess, see my other blogs, and we need action everywhere on almost everything. It’s too late for navel-gazing or self-indulgence, especially when you have children you want to see having a future. Not acting now is the collective ‘being in it’. Nationalism, tribalism, left or right are all too narrow viewpoints, not representing the reality of interconnectedness and interdependence. We need a collective ‘snapping out of it’ and collaborative action all over the planet. Help grow the movement.
13. Focus on Gratitude
Nothing worked so far? 12 ways that sucked for you? Wow, perhaps you need to not seek to achieve freedom or finding ways to get out of it. Let it go. Do either nothing, snap out of this, or, if your brain really loves action: Focus on gratitude. Receive gifts, compliments and accept you’re worth them. Focus on gratitude for all the good moments, for all the support your body gives you. Share daily or weekly moments you feel gratitude for with a partner or friend. And slowly you may become aware how rich your life already is. Focus on gratitude.
Wisdom, Play & Presence and Purpose.
In short, these are all ways to ‘snap out of it’ and start acting. If your snap doesn’t lead to more presence or even action, you haven’t really ‘snapped out of it’. You can snap by increasing your freedom, through playfulness and dancing. You can liberate yourself from your thoughts through increasing wisdom and gratitude. You can take steps to act outwards in the world. Boost your aliveness, awareness, self-expression. They all help to snap out of it. Easy actions, big difference. And if this is the 7th list you’re reading today with tips. Stop. Snap out of that too. :)
Bonus: the masters of snapping you out of it.
They say, that when you are asleep in daily life and don’t wake up in time, tricksters will fool you. They’ll hit you awake, trouble you, steal from you, lie to you, all of that, until you learn. Some tricksters are friendly and seek to help to wake you up. Others are frauds making use of your sleeping. One could claim the USA is collectively asleep with Trump as president, or superstorms are saying our lifestyle has consequences. Being awake is therefore a very serious thing, both personally and collectively. So awake yourself, and even better, help waking up others, whether with a flick of the fingers or with developed methods. Enjoy the ride.
Want to be more creative? Here is an elegant post on how to snap into it.
