The one where I become John Goodman

I get asked about my ideal client, so here goes: You’re stuck, you feel like everything is a little bit f**ked (or a lot, TBH). You know logically it isn’t, you’re actualized enough to know this is "a phase," but it feels like the longest f**king phase ever and you need a hand out of the darkness. That’s where I come in, your John Goodman.

Because we love to see each other via shared narrative, I will give you one. Not a literary one, because we haven’t read the same books — let’s try the movies. I want this to be a visceral, a gut punch of recognition, so I’ll start with sci fi. Getting un-stuck means you feel the unknowing, the painful gestating, the emerging — like an alien erupting from your stomach. But unfortunately the **you** of that story is left as an unneeded husk, dead and eviscerated. So that one doesn’t really land.

Another one: Carrie seems empowered and emerging into her full self when she sets the prom on fire, but alongside all that empowerment is a healthy dash of murder and arson, which feels like more than I want to tackle on a Monday.

What I am landing on is the scene in Raising Arizona of two convicts, digging out from their muddy escape route covered in mud and slime. (Author’s note: if you haven’t seen Raising Arizona, stop reading. I cannot help you, nor do I want to .) The best thing to me about this scene is when John Goodman reaches into a hole and pulls out his friend — by the leg??— screaming in exultation. The second best thing is that next they head into a gas station bathroom, covered in mud, and clean up by combing pomade through their hair.

I guess I’m John Goodman in this story — covered in the mud of transition too, reaching into the hole to help you. That’s what it can look like to get unstuck: you climb out of the hole, feel the exultation, but still be covered in the mud of transition. Not all transitions leave you bright, clean, shiny and Instagrammable. And that’s alright. XO ✨ CJ