The Doldrums

It’s hardly unexpected, but I seem to have found myself the past few days in The Doldrums, within my exercise and health routine. That exact word – doldrums – sprang to mind when I started thinking about an overall “blah” feeling I’ve had lately, which has affected my willingness and “gutting it out” to go the extra mile in exercising and paying attention to what I eat more closely.

Something in the back of my mind, however, said “hey, I think there may be more to that word than just feeling blah” and so I checked it out.

Sure enough.

I had a sneaking suspicion that the term was an old one related to waters — I think it may have been used in part of “Master and Commander” (a terrific movie, by the way) to describe an equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean, and that’s why it stuck in my head. And sure enough, according to a more-or-less “official” description, the Doldrums (officially known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone – the ITCZ) is a “region of the ocean near the equator, characterized by calms, light winds, or squalls.”

Hm. That’s odd – calms, light winds or squalls — a contrasting environment within an environment. In basic meteorlogical terms, it’s that band around the equator where water spins one way going down the drain north of the equator and spins another south. These same spinning effects (the Coriolis effect) can be seen in tradewinds and cloud patterns as well as the water, and the result is that they often offset each other (the “calm” and non-moving “deadness”) or they stir up quite a mess (the “stalls”).

After reading that, the direct correlation and absolute certainty that what I am experiencing is The Doldrums struck me. I’m frustrated after 6 weeks of what I consider to be hard work, my weight has remained fairly unchanged. My current mood is overriding the fact that I’m losing inches (getting smaller), and causing me to focus not on the changes occurring but on what’s NOT occurring.

I’m in the dead/calm stage of The Doldrums. Truth of the matter is though, there is movement and at any time, a squall could rise up and push me further out into this new territory. This place I’m at — where my old ways of sloth, laziness and sameness are meeting resistance and gradually being overtaken by a new way of thinking with activity and embracing change — IS the Doldrums. It’s my own personal ITCZ — a time and place of weird contrasts.

Much like the ancient sailors crossing the world had to do, this is an area I simply MUST navigate through, to reach my destination. It might suck at times. It may be boring or seem like nothing is happening or happening so slowly, but not far away, strong winds of change are rising up, to grab hold of my sails and pull me along again to where and who it is I’m meant to be.

Joey is fond of Ecclesiastes 7:18 – “it is good that you grasp one thing and not let go of the other. The man who fears God will avoid all extremes” – and I must say, that certainly fits in here. In The Doldrums. Geologically, the equator fits in the middle of two extremes (the north and south poles), and geologically, I’m at a crossroads in personal development. Just outside this dead/calm area are patches of challenges where I’ll be buffeted around and tossed on the waves — whether I give up and go back to being fat, unhealthy and lazy, or push forward towards ambitious, sexy and healthy.

The choice is mine to make.

I know which direction to go, so that’s where I’m pointing my rudder. Wish me luck… it’s a bumpy ride ahead!