Feeling Stuck?

Series:  Watching Movies  from a Different Perspective

Feeling stuck or bored with your life?  Do you feel trapped with no options?  If so, watching Groundhog Day from a different perspective might be the solution.

A weatherman inexplicably lives the same day repeatedly.

When I was forced by a spectacular accident in October to stop “doing”, I had no idea what to “do” except whatever it took to survive.  Fortunately for me, we had a good snow year.  Living upstairs with an outside entrance, able to use only one arm and the opposite leg, I learned to throw my laundry and trash over the rail to land by the foot of the stairs in snow.  I mastered one-arm shoveling and relished it because it got me outside.  I fed my cats and cleaned their box.  Just doing what I had to do kept me from getting bored until March when it quit snowing.

Now what was I going to do?  I still couldn’t do what I used to do because of the accident–no hiking, walking, or even reading or writing because my right wrist still hurt too much to hold a book/Kindle or use a computer.  So I read personal horoscopes.  I had bought two different kinds of annual reports and they said the same thing: “Take stock of your life.  Determine what’s working, what isn’t, and what you really want.”

I couldn’t do it.  I felt stuck!

I resisted everything that came up, day after day, week after week, until I realized I was behaving just as Phil (Bill Murray) did in Groundhog Day, endlessly repeating the same day exactly as before!

But, like Phil, I finally accepted where I was in life and began to take advantage of it.

I finally accepted where I was in life and began to take advantage of it.

I allowed myself as much time as I wanted to contemplate my life (as I had for hours a day when I was a child). I learned new things.  And then I found myself doing things I hadn’t done for years, things that brought me joy.

So if you’re bored with your life or feeling trapped with no options, try watching Groundhog Day again, but from a different perspective.  Commiserate with Phil when he realizes he’s the only one stuck in the loop.  Watch how he handles it.  Notice comparisons with his journey and how you’re handling yours.  And share his joy when he figures out how to beat feeling stuck!

Identifying with Phil is easier for changing your life than tripping on a Kayak, falling onto glass-hard concrete on your left knee then right hand, creating multiple fractures.  But some of us need severe Cosmic Thumps to get our attention that it’s time to make a change.  You don’t have to be one of them.  A smart person would just take time off to figure it out.  Are you that person?

Related:

• Mirrors of Life on the Screen
• Love Affair with Movies

Till next time,

Please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi

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*Photo and synopsis credit:    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/