Loops, Part II

So, you say the problem is not that you have your own loop, but that Someone Else is in a loop? And it’s a continuous, repetitive, unproductive loop? And you’ve been listening to it for hour weeks months years? And it’s driving you absolutely batty? And you have no idea how to change the channel? Is that what’s bothering you, Bunky? If so, here’s another list.

Top 10 Ways to Get Somebody Else Out of a Continuous Loop

10. Smile (I can hear your face creaking), and write it down. Really look at what you’ve been hearing. Riff on it, dwell in the possibilities of it, evolve it, write a screenplay about it on which some editor will scribble “this could never happen in real life.” Laugh out loud at it, a deep belly laugh.
9. Utter the Serenity Prayer (oh wait, if you don’t pray, leave the “Lord” part out, but remember that drawing strength from somewhere outside of yourself is sometimes all you’ve got): Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
8. If you are both in the loop--on a “why-why-why-cycle built for two--” sometimes you can lead the way out by using the same techniques that work for your own individual loops – identification of the loop to begin with, distractions, inquiry into the validity of your thinking.
7. See the Serenity Prayer again, and consider the serenity part. Slow down and listen very carefully. What can you hear that you haven’t heard in this loop before? How can you hear it in a new way? In my father’s last days, I visited him in the hospital and slowly, slowly peeled an orange and handed him one segment at a time. In those brief moments I was there, in the now, no loops, only acceptance.
6. Hum along, and eventually learn the words. My son works in a restaurant that plays a sound track over and over again featuring Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison.” He can quit his job, or he can learn the words. Sometimes it makes sense to sing along.
5. Walk away from the loop. If a loop runs continuously in the forest where nobody hears, is it still a loop?
4. Change the subject—repeatedly--since a really good loopster knows a hundred ways to get back on the loop.
3. Shine a light on the loop. Be careful though; if you do this with judgment or anger you end up in your own loop. But I know that when my ever-patient partner finally, finally calls me on a loop of mine, I am probably in the mother of all loops and I try hard to take a detour.
2. Consider what it will be like in the absence of the loop and the person in it, and be grateful as hell that you are still hearing that voice which someday you may never hear again. Gratitude heals. Make a list of everything you are grateful for.
1. And the number one way to escape somebody else’s loop: stop focusing on somebody else’s loop and focus on breaking out of your own. Help yourself.

Comments welcome--any other ideas for breaking out of loops?