Today I joined the beautiful host of KOOP’s (91.7FM) “The Idea Lounge”, Khotan Shahbazi Harmon for a lively conversation around self-esteem, creativity, depression, feeling stuck. Seems counter-intuitive that our discussion would have been lively, but it was. For the past few months I’ve experienced what I would call the “beige” colors of life and have been surfing along playing with the various hues of beige to see what the gifts that this stuck time brings.

Beige for me means that life is coasting along at a fairly non-bumping rate, which is good, but that there haven’t been many times of vivid purples and rose colored glasses. Conversely, there haven’t been too many deep black or at least indigo blue dips either. If feelings had colors, then beige would be the color of feeling stuck. By the way, I don’t think there is such a thing as stuck. Sure, there absolutely is the feeling of being stuck, but we’re dynamic molecules in agreement to coalesce together to make a human so all parts of us are constantly changing all the time. I think that the feeling of being stuck may be a good sign that actually there are a whole bunch of molecules standing at the station waiting to make a huge transit into another way of being. In other words, we’re right on the precipice of becoming someone new. Or at least having a new perspective.

When life becomes beige for you, here’s some tips that I have tried that may help you to swirl in some primary colors to add some zing while you’re in process:

* If you can swim and have access to a pool, go swim. Swim enough laps that you get into the flow of swimming and can let your mind wander. If possible, find a pool that you can swim outside so you can watch the sun’s rays in the water. If you don’t swim or you don’t have access to a pool, go for a walk. But try to go for a vigorous walk with your arms and legs moving.

* Listen to music. With today’s advances in technologies you can find all kinds of ways to listen to music. You can type in the name of a band or song on www.youtube.com and download it right to your computer without buying it. Public radio stations also post their song lists for the day so go check that out for tunes that may be new to you. Keep listening to different music till you find a song so beautiful or so electric that you want to keep playing it over and over. That may just be a sign that you’ve hit the right frequency of what you’re needing to hear.

* If you’re a writer, write. Stretch yourself. None of this, “well, I’m a writer but I don’t write all the time or that much” Give yourself a goal of writing or blogging 100 pages in 100 days. It’ll get the juices flowing for sure. If you don’t write, then read. Find something that you can read that will have you so immersed that you will be surprised how much time flies by.

* Clean your house, apartment, car. Seriously, this will get all kinds of things moving in your mind and heart. Organize your closet. Organize your drawers. What about the “junk” drawer in the kitchen. Set a kitchen timer or your watch for 20 minutes and don’t do anything else but clean.

Those are just a few of the things that I do to help myself when life is feeling beige. I have many more. If you’re disabled, please don’t let this discourage you. Contact me off line and we can brain storm some ideas of how you can get moving too.

One last thing, there is a period in the beige when it is important for us to just be with the beige and accept it. Breathe in and out and know that this will pass too. Be at peace with the calm. Take in the rest. If after a period of time of understanding and accepting the beige you’re ready to move on, then try some of the tips I’ve shared.

Remember acceptance is the answer to all that ails us.