an unexpected path through the traffic jam

Did you ever play that plastic car game as a kid called “Rush Hour”? The one where you have to get the taxi out of a truly gridlocked mess of other plastic cars on a grey square? I always started that game with such confidence, only to throw it aside five minutes later when I inevitably couldn’t solve the maze.

Lately, my mind has been feeling a little bit like that game…an endlessly complicated, and honestly infuriating, mix of thoughts, insights and feelings all trying to travel in different directions; making the seemingly ‘easy’ act of driving in a straight line feel nearly impossible. Maybe you can relate. Whether it’s personal life decisions, emotional questions, or dealing with the uncertainties we’re all facing in modern life - life is COMPLICATED, folks. Or as we millennials like to say - “adulting is HARD.”

The research-oriented, problem-solving obsessed part of my brain is often the loudest part, particularly when I’m stressed. When I feel trapped or lost - financially, emotionally, you name it - my synapses go into overdrive trying to ‘solve’ my life’s problems. Maybe the next Google search, tarot spread, inspirational Youtube video, mindfulness app, journaling exercise, or self-help book will crack the code and I’ll feel less like the inside of my head has become a sweaty, angry LA freeway in afternoon traffic, horns and expletives blaring.

But it never works. More logic, more consumption of more information and data - they never solve the thing, at least not fully.

I’m starting to learn that the quiet voices in the backseat are actually the ones that can get me out of my internal traffic jam. Here’s what I mean…

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Once in a session back in Seattle, my former therapist Chris asked me a transformative question: “what if you did something different, something that didn’t make ‘sense.’”

We’d been working through and naming this specific tendency of mine - to stew on a problem until I’d ‘fixed’ it. As our work together progressed, and true healing allowed my brain and body to start seeing old problems through new lenses, I could see how that classic ‘insanity’ pattern kept showing up as I tried the same thing over and over expecting different results.

So his brilliant response? Do something different. Simple, but certainly counterintuitive.

When I could tell I was spiraling or stuck in a mental rush hour, stop. Take a deep breath. Then go for a walk. Make a meal for myself. Hang out with friends and DON’T talk about the problem. Do something that to my logical brain feels completely illogical.

Then come back to it and see what’s shifted. How my lens may have altered just enough to see the ‘problem’ in a new light.

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As I began practicing this in my own life - and actually seeing more calm and clarity finally arrive - I started noticing parallels all over the place.

Like the grade school writing technique I learned in high school English to take your printed essay, grab a pair of scissors and cut it up. Then put it all on the table in no particular order and see if a new, better outline arrives.

Or trying to heed the Gottmans’ ground-breaking conflict advice in my own romantic relationships - to stop an unproductive fight, go away for a set period of time, then come back when both parties are calmer and try again.

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The more I learn about our incredible nervous systems and endlessly complex brains, the more I realize why this advice worked then and works now:

If we are in a state of deep activation (that fight or flight feeling of “I must figure out this f*$@ing problem RIGHT NOW”), our brains literally aren’t working at their full capacity. Our prefrontal cortex goes offline (you know, the part that helps you make logical decisions), our stress hormones go up, and our body essentially thinks a tiger is chasing us down.

So in a modern world, where real threats exist - but often aren’t tigers (real or metaphorical) threatening us with imminent death - it’s essential to learn how to stop, breathe, and go do something different. Why? Because that doing something different - dancing, yoga, pottery class, tickling your kids - actually allows your whole body to reset, remember safety, and return to that place of calm where we actually make our best decisions.

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As I’ve been launching our first Gathering School studio sessions, this has been top of mind.

During our Make Bad Art Sessions, we help stressed-out adults learn how to stop, breathe, and just make something - usually ridiculous, always interesting, most likely messy. (Join us for our next one!) There’s wine and charcuterie and playful exercises with new people. It’s essentially a container to practice resetting our nervous systems in real-time. Or as my lovely friend Delaney said at our first session: allowing the making to be a “perfect punctuation mark to the day.” A semi-colon to our lives, allowing the rest of the sentence to write itself on its own terms.

I think this skillset - of holding uncertainty and creation without agenda - is essential to living a more present and peaceful life. The more we can learn how to do this - to name when we’re overwhelmed and getting nowhere, stop, and do something different - the more we, ironically, gain agency in our lives.

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When it comes to the current swirling mess of scary questions inside my head, perhaps the answer isn’t more anxious solving. Perhaps, each of those annoying plastic cars is actually a puzzle piece. And if I ditched the stupid grey grid, shook them all up in a garbage bag, and threw out them out, helter skelter, on the kitchen table, I’d see a totally new picture. One that allowed me a way through the mess that I never could have seen before.