I was reading for a client on Sunday, and, as often is the case with my clients, her life was in a mess in one particularly large and important area. The details of her situation aren’t that important to what I want to say today, though, so I won’t go into them. However, she did say something that has stuck in my mind for several days. She brought up the notion of being in a slump.

When we think of a slump, most Americans immediately think of baseball players, particularly batters. For some mysterious reason, a perfectly good or even excellent batter just starts missing the dang ball, over and over again. What gives? No one REALLY has figured out why batters go into and out of these slumps; we just observe them come and go. While they’re making their way out of the athlete’s life, though, we all sit biting our nails and wondering how long it will last—especially the athlete!

My client was talking about her niece who played softball, and who actually was struggling with being in a slump. The niece was surprised, though, when my client summed it up that way: “Don’t worry, kiddo, you’re just in a slump!” The girl didn’t know what a slump was. No one had ever taught her what the word meant. As such, she couldn’t identify it in her own life, nor did she realize that this was so common that there was a widely used word for it.

So, when have you been in a slump? What part or parts of your life was it in? When did it start, and how long did it last? Did you notice when it started going away? Did you have to do anything to make it leave, or did it just sort of disappear on its own?

Personally, I’m in a bit of a slump right now. “Things” (what a wonderfully vague, diffuse, covers-all-manner-of-sins word it is!) just “aren’t going right.” I’m just feeling blah these days. I don’t have my usual enthusiasm, optimism, or verve. I’m sleeping too much, not exercising enough (not exercising at all!), and I’m foolishly spending time worrying about people and things I can’t control. Duh! Physician, heal thyself! Preacher, practice what you preach!

The nice thing about it, is that I do know that slumps come and go. In the particular Tarot deck I use, the Fortune card is depicted by a serene woman overseeing a giant, spoked, turning wheel. One man is climbing up the wheel, another man is falling off. Such is life…the wheel does keep on turning (but does Proud Mary keep on burning? Ha!), and the only thing that changes is our position on it.

A boss I had at WEMU, the public radio station I worked at during college, once said to me, “Listen. Your business is never frozen. It is ALWAYS either going up or down.” He’s right. (He also said “don’t forget, people judge you by your shoes,” but that’s a topic for another post!) Our slumps are either moving out of our life or into them, but they will never stay forever. By the way, sometimes you can have a seven-year slump…those are painful and annoying as anything, and they do sometimes FEEL like they will be here forever. But they won’t

Good luck, everybody!

Lana