The Art of Getting Unstuck
Q&A with returning 2024 speaker Amy Bonsall
We’re really excited to have designer and coach Amy Bonsall back for this year’s Midlife Conference. Last year, she guided us in exploring the question, “Where is home?” This year, she’s here to help us tackle the challenge of getting unstuck - whether in our careers, relationships, or other areas of life.
Aaron Britt, co-founder of Ask the Ages and host of its sister radio program, sat down with Amy to discuss how to shed the ‘ick’ feeling of being stuck.
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Q: How do people get stuck in the first place?
A: I’m seeing three ways: decisions, transitions, and what I’m calling incisions… (forgive the nerdy rhyming, but I love it when that happens because it makes things easier to remember!). Hard decisions are when more than one choice can be right, but for different reasons. It’s challenging to determine which path is the right one for you because mulitple could work.
Transitions often come with a sense of the ground shifting underfoot and a loss of identity. Maybe you got laid off from a job you really identified with, or you just retired, or graduated from college, or you’re getting divorced or even married. Any sort of change in life when you were something or did something and now you are (or are doing) something else can present big opportunities to get stuck.
And incisions are the paper cuts that we brush off but surprise us with their sting. These are usually things that are really important to us (say, integrating exercise into our lives, or rebuilding a relationship with a loved one) but that we simply can’t seem to make happen.
Q: When you look around your group of clients and friends, is there some sticky problem that seems particularly unique to midlife?
A: The loss of identity is very interesting at midlife because there’s this recognition that part of your life is baked. Some things that you may have dreamed about or still have the ambition to do are now unlikely to happen (alas, I will not be an Olympic figure skater, as a younger me planned!). At midlife, you’re reckoning with the lives you could have lived. But equally, the second half of our lives is wide open, and so this becomes a natural period in which to reflect on what we can still be.
One of the things I support people with is getting clear on what’s really important to them in this phase of life. This becomes a beacon that helps people consider changes they may want to make.
The way we do that varies, but in a hard decision like where to live, I'll ask for criteria on what they want in a city. Then, we do this exercise where we ask what’s most important repeatedly. For me, one of the big things when I was pondering where to live was being somewhere warm in winter. What’s important about that? Well, when it's warm I'm more likely to go outside. What’s important about that? Well I'm more active and social. So the thing is that I thrive when I'm active and social.
So, living somewhere warm isn’t actually my core need, although it’s nice. But it’s a shortcut to a really core need (being active and social), and that’s incredibly useful to understand. Someone else might have answered that in a very different way, which would have led to a different core need.
Q: Can you give us some clues as to what you’ll be talking about in your Midlife Conference session?
A: Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about the conference. I have so much I want to share. I’m going to focus in on these three things:
First, we’ll talk about the drivers of getting stuck. Not just the where but the why. For example, one phenomenon that transcends the different ways of getting stuck is what I call the Fly Trap. That’s where a really sticky emotion like guilt or shame or self-judgment gets in the way of a person moving forward on something that’s important to them. \
Second, I’ll highlight one of the treasures of the space of transition in particular: the liminal zone. It’s the time between an ending and a beginning that us humans like to rush through, but there’s so much beauty in savoring it.
And third, we’ll do an activity to help each person reflect on an area of their life that feels stuck and consider what they might do about it.
My approach has been: Let me get curious about what sticks and what doesn’t and not judging myself about all of it being perfect. So subscribe to my newsletter and go check out all my imperfections!
