Do you feel “stuck”?

If you do, what do you really mean? If you follow the movement of nature, you realize that nothing is ever “stagnant.” Everything constantly evolves and changes. Days turn into nights, weeks into months, months into years. Minute by minute, your blood stream flows and helps your body re-build itself. Your cells rejuvenate constantly; in fact, after seven years, all the cells of your entire body have changed. The same happens in nature. Trees and plants grow, come to maturity, die, and go back into the earth to feed the next generation.

Only we human beings, “think” that we can make things stay the same. In fact, a lot of us resist change because it makes us feel “out of control,” as if we really had control over anything except ourselves. Keeping the memory of what has worked in the past is an incredible survival tool! Let’s face it: if we had to re-invent the wheel every time we brushed our teeth and completed our daily tasks, we would get exhausted quickly!

It is a good thing to do certain things the same way, every day, without having to rethink our strategy. Despite the fact that this is a good survival strategy, when it comes down to the human spirit living and thriving, this strategy no longer works. Why?

Because by definition, energy (which is at the basis of all life forms in nature), is in constant motion. The same energy that feeds the plants and makes this planet spin into its orbit, feeds your heart with desires. Call it “inner wisdom”, call it “heart whispers”, hunches, intuition, or universal intelligence…we are all connected to it. Through our desires, “the energy that creates worlds” sends us messages, calling us to grow and expand at every moment. It’s like a snake shedding a skin that is too tight, making room for a bigger body. Our heart’s desires keep us expanding. When we refuse to “hear” those hunches (intuition or desires), we butt against ourselves.

If we choose not to respond, and try really hard to keep everything the same, we begin feeling stale and bored; and that resistance gets us exhausted, sometimes at the point of illness. I know firsthand what that experience feels like. A few years back, after getting laid off from a job where I knew I was done two years before, they let me go, and I stayed with it because of the money. I “fell” into another job without really making that as a full choice. It was there, and I took it. After six months, it quickly became obvious to me that I wasn’t doing what I loved and I tried adapting. Remember: not choosing is also a choice! After two years of “sticking” with it (because I thought/believed that I “had to”), I got sick. At that point, I chose to look deeper into my illness, and connect to the deeper reasons of my being sick. Bottom line: I had come to believe, based on my childhood, that I couldn’t have what I wanted, and that I had to “adapt” to whatever was around me and make the best of it. Some of us wait for something drastic to happen before we start looking deeper (losing a job or a partner, the death of a loved one, an illness or accident, children leaving home), before we ask ourselves: “what do I really want?”, “what matters to me most?”, “what I am called to do in this lifetime?”, or “what do I want out of this situation?”

That is how we get “stuck”!

Let’s look at it again through the eyes of nature. If you take a magnet, and have the two positive forces face each other, they will repel. Something remains static when two opposite forces push against one another. Inner wisdom, your heart’s desires, and life’s opportunities calling you to a new place; meanwhile, you saying no (not always consciously, I know) creates the “push back” force that makes you feel stuck. You have your reasons of course! They all make sense to you when you think about why you are not making a move to change what bothers you. It keeps you stuck, and ultimately you stop the flow of your own life. For example, saying something like, “I really want to be healthy,” and not taking the actions needed to make it happen, creates the “stuckness.” Six months later, you find yourself at the same place! Or you say that you want a new job/career, or to start your own business, but you never take the first step.

Eventually, after not taking the actions needed to make things happen, your self-esteem goes down and your sense of self diminishes—sometimes to the point of getting depressed. I like to think of depression as “energy repressed,” or not able to express itself. I am certainly not talking about clinical depression, but the overall feeling that things just won’t work out, and that we won’t be able to succeed. When I ask most of my clients, “what do you want?”, the answer is usually right there.

What stands in their way of getting it are fears and disbeliefs. In my next newsletter, I will address the topic of beliefs (or lack of beliefs), but for now let’s talk about how to get some movement going again!

1) Make “getting unstuck” a priority!

a. Yes, spend some time daily clarifying your thoughts and feelings.

b. Enroll supportive people around you—those who will affirm what you want. Avoid nay-sayers: the ones who, no matter what, will drain you.

2) Stop affirming that you are “stuck”!
What you keep repeating becomes an affirmation that eventually turns into reality.

a. Affirm that you are looking for clarity, instead of repeating that you are stuck. Begin looking for it, even in the smallest places. i. Ask yourself: “What do I like to eat?” “Who do I like to hang out with?” “What activities do I enjoy doing?”

b. Keep track of your discovery: i. Years back (when I felt “stuck”), I kept a “clarity journal” (in a Word document by the same name), I recorded every thought or feeling that felt “just right around certain topics.” Back then, I focused on career. Eventually, I started noticing themes.

3) Get moving physically. Your physiology affects your psychology!

a. When you feel “stuck” mentally, chances are that nothing is moving much anywhere else!

b. Exercise daily, preferably first thing in the morning. It has been researched for thousands of years (in the Ayurvedic tradition) that the best time to “shake the cobwebs,” is in the morning between 6 and 10AM.

4) Be mindful of your conversation to yourself and others.

Stop the press! Notice the stories running in your head, and the statements that keep you stuck, especially statements that affirm “what is not working,” Like “ I’ll never to get a job ,I can’t be a business owner,I can never be successful

I am afraid because terrible things can happen (assuming that safety is not an issue in your life).Stop the story line and focus on your breath. Practice mindful awareness: this moment, your breath, physical sensations, etc. Make statements of capability, inquiry, and desire, such as

I want to be clear on what to do next ,and figure out how things need to be done and learn to become a successful business owner ,Drop me a line to let me know how you make out, or even better, join me for a special event that I have put together to help you get unstuck (both live, or on the phone).

Click here for more details on this special “Getting Unstuck” event. In the meantime, keep listening to your heart’s desires!