To struggle like mad to try to climb its way out.
I would actually be miming, in sort of a grand way, struggling with arms and legs flailing around. And we all know from watching movies or cartoons what happens when you try to struggle your way out of quicksand, right? Usually, the client will say something like, “Well, you go deeper and deeper down in the sand.” Right.
So instead, what do we know from watching those same movies that we’re supposed to do? We’re supposed to do something counterintuitive, right, if we have the unlucky circumstance of falling into quicksand. And if the client has seen something like that, they might answer, “Lie flat and stay still.” Exactly.
You’re supposed to stop struggling, spread yourself out, and try to get in as much surface area contact with the quicksand as possible, at least as an initial step until you figure out what else to do.
But the first thing is to stop struggling and just get in contact with the stuff that you’re struggling with. It’s not that you haven’t been trying hard enough to deal with your current situation, to deal with those traumatic memories and the feelings that you have.
It’s just that sometimes we have to realize that we’re in the quicksand so that we can stop struggling long enough to try something else.