Are you feeling stuck? – 5 questions to get you back on track

Are you feeling stuck in life? Are you feeling confused? Are you feeling frozen with fear? Are you overwhelmed? I have five questions that you can ask yourself and get you moving so you can get unstuck!

I have learned from being stuck, there are things we can do, small tweaks, and questions we can ask to train our minds to think differently, so we can get ourselves unstuck.

Question 1 – Are you holding on to the past?

I was stuck because of my past for about 43 years. For me, it was my childhood.

You might be stuck in some resentment from a year ago, or six months ago, or yesterday, or last month. There is hope! You do not have to feel that way. You do not have to cling to the past.

Who would you be if you weren’t holding on to your painful story?

Here’s what I realized with my own past. There were some things that had been done to me, some resentment I was holding on to, some wounds I was holding on to, what I perceived as people doing me wrong I was holding on to.

That thing that was done to you and me is in the past. What I did was hold on to it, and I kept punishing myself with it over and over and over again. I used it as a story and let it play in my head over, and over, and over, again.

When I first started learning about how to help myself get past the past, one of the beautiful things I learned is that I can choose to hang onto that story, or not. No matter how true it is, no matter how much the story has been embellished in my mind over the years, it’s my choice.

When you hang onto a painful story it’s like holding onto a porcupine. Guess who gets to feel the pinch, and the prod, and the poke of that story?

I loved, in a sick way, playing the story over and over in my head, and it so defined me. I am here to tell you that it doesn’t have to define you. That really super painful story that you’re holding on to, is keeping you stuck.

My story was keeping me stuck in my relationships.

It was keeping me stuck in my work.

It was keeping me stuck in my parenting.

It was keeping me stuck in my spiritual life, because I sort of blamed God.

Your story is like a really heavy backpack. Mine is 292 pages long, it’s heavy! You’re lugging this story through life, and you wonder why you can’t go anywhere. Your body feels heavy because you’re carrying this emotional weight, this emotional backpack, this heavy, painful story.

Your brain thinks it’s really important for you to keep thinking it and believing it, but I’m here to tell you that freedom awaits you on the other side of letting the story go.

I know it feels important to hold on to it. Your brain is telling you, “You have to hold on to this story. It was true.” It seems to justify the pain you went through by holding on to it. Really it doesn’t, because you’re just keeping yourself in pain.

Little by little, I just started to let go of the story. I wrote it down, called it “All the Pretty Things,” and I let it go. You know what happened?

Unbelievable, amazing, life-changing freedom happened when I let go of that story. My life literally opened up and began to just blossom in every imaginable way.

So many amazing things happened when I dared let go of the painful story. The other thing that happened is my heart so opened up to the people in my life and to the people in my story, that I began to have so much more compassion for them, and for me.

Question 2 – Are you letting your brain run wild with all kinds of stories and negativity?

A few months ago, I came off a crazy, busy season, and I was exhausted. For several weeks after that, I just told myself, “I’m just spinning my wheels. I’m not getting stuff done.” I thought I was just stating the facts. “I really am stuck!”

What we don’t realize is that we’re creating the stuck-ness. We’re creating the non-productiveness by continuing to let that thought, and that message, and that story go unsupervised in our heads.

Have you ever considered that when you say, “I’m stuck,” that’s just a thought? It’s just a thing you’re telling yourself and it’s optional.

Your brain loves to tell itself that you’re stuck, and confused and you don’t know what to do, and let me tell you why. Because if you’re stuck, you don’t have to do anything! If you’re confused, you don’t have to move forward. If you’re stuck, then there’s nothing else to do, there’s no creativity to explore, there are no options.

You decide what you want to think about your day, and your week, and your month. What do you want to think about your life? What do you want to think about your marriage? Don’t get caught in a loop of perpetual stuck-ness!

Be on to yourself, but not mad at yourself. Be kind and tell yourself, “It’s okay, darlin’, you’re not stuck. We know what to do. We’ve got this. You know how to create this. You know how to start the book. You know how to lose the weight. You know how to get clarity in your relationship.”

As a man thinks in his heart so is he. ~ Proverbs 23:7

You decide. Your thoughts will become your life. Be on to yourself when you’re in this loop of stuck-ness because you’ll prove yourself right.

Question 3 – Are you willing to feel your feelings?

When you stifle your feelings and you refuse to feel them, you buffer instead. You seek false pleasure. You go scroll on Facebook, you go have some cookies, you eat your feelings, you shop your feelings, or you scroll your feelings.

When you refuse to feel your feelings, the fuel for your life is literally stifled. Your feelings fuel your life.

When you squash them all, you will create zero momentum in your life, because you need to be in charge of those feelings. You need to be willing to feel the bad ones and willing to generate the good ones.

Life is like this: there are a lot of good things and there are some bad things. We signed up for all of it. We say yes to all of it. I say yes when it’s hard, and when I feel grief or I feel loss. I also say yes to the moments when little Tom Tom reaches his hand up around my neck in the mornings, and feels to make sure I’m still there, to that overwhelming gratitude. I’m here for all of it!

We signed up for it all. If you aren’t willing to feel it, your life will feel like there’s no flow. It will feel stuck because you are stuck in your emotions, and you won’t let them flow.

We’re so afraid to feel the bad ones! You know what emotions feel like? They come and go. They come in waves. We have to be willing to say, “Oh, interesting. I feel down today. I feel a lot of loss today.” Feel it, welcome it, let it come on in, sit with it. “Oh, a little anxiety. Interesting. Come on in. Sit with me. Let’s feel it. What does it feel like? Oh, it’s tight in my chest, and in my throat. Okay.”

We welcome it because when you welcome it, it just goes on through. Then the next ones come on through. Then you can pick a few that you want. You know how I want to feel today? I want to feel so motivated about my life! I want to feel so energized to share whatever I have to share with other people.

I can generate emotions when I’m willing to just let them all come, let them all be there. What we do instead is we seek a lot of false pleasure. We just cover it up. We just pretend it’s not there. We just squish it down. That is no recipe for the life you want.

Feeling your feelings is the key to getting clarity and momentum in your life, because you’re here for it all.

Question 4 – Are you being a victim to the people or circumstances of your life?

Your circumstances have absolutely nothing to do with you, and the way you want to show up, and the way you want to create momentum in your life. Absolutely nothing, unless you let them. We make ourselves a victim to people, we make ourselves a victim to our circumstances, and when we do that, we lose all of our power.

I would get going with my life, but my husband holds me back.

I would get going with my life, but these children.

I would get going with my life, but my rascally boss.

I would do that thing, but I don’t have enough money.

I don’t have enough time.

I don’t have enough.

You are not a victim. You get to be in charge of what you think, and how you feel, and how you show up in your life. You don’t have to wait for a specific set of circumstances. As a matter of fact, even when those circumstances come, if you haven’t decided to be in charge of your thoughts and your feelings and your actions, it won’t matter.

You won’t do the thing then, if you won’t take responsibility now. You are not a victim to the people or the circumstances in your life. When you realize that, you will stand in your place of internal power, where you really have the ability to emotionally grow up, and take responsibility for every little thing in your life. It’s such an amazing, powerful place to create your life from.

Question 5 – Are you using your gift to serve other people?

A lot of times when we feel stuck, we are thinking about ourselves over and over. It’s a very selfish place to be because we’re overthinking about ourselves, and that makes us over worried about ourselves.

Stop worrying and just do. Stop worrying and just serve.

Who is God putting right in front of you every single day that you can love, and serve, and offer something to? What little action can you take that breaks you out of yourself, that breaks you out of this weird, negative, stuck loop, and makes you see the people right in front of you who need you?

This whole stuck thing is a way to keep us from serving the people in our lives who need what we have, so let’s just start giving it away.

What I have to give isn’t perfect, but I just show up and offer what I have. Offer a little piece of yourself, a piece of your heart, a little bit of service and love to somebody else. It’s the best way get you out your own way. I feel less stuck when I get out of my own way and serve others.

If you are feeling stuck in life, I hope that you will, number one, let go of the past. Number two, decide what you want to think and feel. Number three, feel your actual feelings and stop eating them, and shopping them, and Facebooking them. Number four, stop being a victim to your circumstances and to the people in your life. Number five, start loving and serving people with your whole heart and you won’t feel stuck anymore!

Life Mentoring School is open for enrollment now. If you need help with these steps, we go in depth. We really focus on how to get your life exactly where you want it, how to get yourself unstuck, how to move past your past, and how to really become a relationship Ninja!

If you want those tools, consider joining Life Mentoring School. You can go to this link to sign up while enrollment is still open. It has been life changing, and I’m so very honored by the people who trust us with their stories. We would love to have you join this program.