When you’re stuck it can be helpful to remember there’s always a flip side. I remember reading an article when Tom Green’s comedy was in its heyday. It described his method for creating comedy as turning things upside down or inside out to find the most bizarre opposite. Doing something similar can help move you out of negative head space.
Like vinyl records, we all have emotional grooves that entrench our thoughts and keep us going round and round in the same place. Often, these grooves were created by a significant event that was dangerous, scary, or had high emotional stakes. It’s easy for us to slip back into one of these grooves when we experience emotions similar to those original events.
Vinyl also tended to have spots the needle would skip. Both problems keep the album from moving smoothly through a tune and then shifting seamlessly to another.
If you’re old enough to remember vinyl, you may also remember that placing a penny on the record player needle arm was sometimes sufficient to keep a record from skipping. And you could manually move the arm to unstick the needle. As annoying as the problems were, there were solutions. The same is true of the emotional and mental grooves we tend toward.
One technique for making it easier to move forward is to remember, and make use of, the flip side. I’m not saying look for a silver lining. There are those, but that line of thinking doesn’t usually acknowledge that there’s a cost to only seeking the positive. Instead, we need tools that allow for the downside while also offering peaceful, productive ways to move on to the next tune.
So how can we use the flip side?
First, identify the feeling or obstacle that’s keeping you stuck. Don’t worry about being petty or silly. How you feel is how you feel. Name it.
Once you’re identified what’s holding you back, ask what would be the exact opposite of that? For example, let’s say you’re jealous that your husband can eat pastries of any kind, anywhere, at any time. And, let’s say he eats them in front of you all the time with no apology.
What’s the opposite of jealousy? In this particular instance, you’re jealous that he can eat pastry in abundance when you can only have it under very controlled, specific, limited circumstances. Rather than focus on his abundance, focus on increasing your sparse consumption.
How can you consume pastry all the time? Do you really want to? What if you experiment with it to see how it makes you feel?
So, flip jealousy to curiosity and experimentation and flip scarcity to abundance. Bake or buy a freezer load of pastries your dietary plan allows. For several days, eat a pastry every time your husband does. Then examine how you feel.
- Are you still jealous of him?
- Do you want to continue eating pastries along with him?
- Did you discover there’s something you like better than pastry that you want to keep in the freezer or pantry?
- Does eating pastry make you feel better or worse?
The answer is your guide for breaking out of your rut. You may discover that you don’t like that much sugar and carbs because they make you feel sluggish. Or you may discover that what you saw as abundance feels more like gluttony when you’re the consumer. And if you discover that you’re happy matching him, then you’ve learned it’s important to develop a way to continue doing that.
Maybe you don’t feel jealous. Maybe you just feel like your required diet isn’t satisfying. How would you flip that feeling?
This one can be tough because the enjoyment of food is affected by taste, texture, expectation, and effort. But try letting yourself get extra hungry. Then eat the least satisfying food you’ve been eating on a regular basis. Does being hungry change the experience?
Another way to flip that scenario is to gather three foods you considered the most satisfying before you understood your dietary restrictions. If these are foods that will NOT cause an allergic reaction or adverse immune response, eat them – but only two bites of each. Is it possible that just a bite here or there would diminish your feeling of being deprived?
Or you may learn that these foods make you feel bad and you hadn’t noticed before. You may learn that these foods aren’t as satisfying as they once were. You’ll discover whatever you discover. Being open to all the possibilities and observing as objectively as possible are the keys to accessing the most helpful information.
- If you’re dairy free but have avoided nut-based ice cream because you don’t like nuts (as long as you aren’t allergic), flip the script and try it.
- If you can’t eat spinach but have never tried bok choy or dandelion greens, flip the script and opt for a new exotic green.
- If you hate hot soup, try cold.
- If you hate fruity yogurt, try it plain.
- If you hate plain yogurt, add honey or fresh fruit.
- If you hate hamburgers, try steak.
- If you hate fried chicken, try grilled, smoked, or rotisserie.
Our work and home schedules take us through the same territory over and over again. We often get locked into routines and forget to think beyond our current habits. We begin to think, I can’t have fried chicken rather than I can’t have fried chicken battered in wheat flour.
Another way to look at the flip side is to make lists of all the foods you CAN have. You may be surprised how long the list is. It’s easier to shift our mindset when we change our point of view.
Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find a technique that allows you to easily explore the flip side. It can make all the difference.
