Feeling Stuck?

           Have you ever found yourself stuck in your relationships or your life in general, feeling hopeless that things will or ever could change?  I know I have and I’m sure we all have at some point in our lives.  Maybe we are unsure how our relationships got to where they are and have even less of an idea of how to get out.

        Have you ever looked at successful people and wondered why life was so much easier for them.  Perhaps thinking they are smarter, wiser, thinner, or faster than you are.  Why are some people able to take a little bit of information and turn their lives around, but others, armed with the same tools, change nothing?  The answer is simple: Action.  What the winners have in common is that they have put their thoughts, dreams, and plans into action instead of passively waiting for things to change.  People who live their dreams are those who stop considering all the angles, weighing the pros and cons, and just go do it.  They aren’t always “in the mood” when they begin, but they do it anyway.  Without action there is no change.  Studies have shown that when a person smiles, even when they don’t feel like it, they feel better.  If they pretend they are outgoing, they can begin to feel outgoing.  If you aren’t in the mood for sex, but you pretend you are, you just may discover that you will get in the mood. 

Often when we are feeling stuck we are paralyzed with fear to do something different or we are sure that whatever we are doing should work and if you just keep doing it, eventually it will work.  If it works, keep it, if it doesn’t, do something different.  Possibly you have gone to counseling where you have spent large amounts of time reliving your past experiences in an effort to understand how you got here, and although you may now have a great understanding of how you got to where you are, you have no idea how to move forward.   As long as you stay in the past, you can’t move forward.  It can be scary to try something new, but honestly, it can be much more scary and devastating to our relationships to stay stuck.  We have to do something different.  Often times, it doesn’t really matter what you try as long as you try something.  Don’t be paralyzed in fear. 

                In the book “The Third Eye” they talked about a Tibetan ceremony for those who wished to be enlightened.  The ceremony was named, “The Room of a Thousand Demons”. Only those who have studied the Dalai Lama are permitted to participate. 

                Before the ceremony begins, the Dali Lama explains to the disciples that they are going to enter a small room, and when they do the door will hut behind them.  The only exit is another door on the opposite side of the room.  Although the distance between the doors is not great, many people never make it out.  The few who do are enlightened. 

                He goes on to explain that the room is filled with a thousand demons who are able to read people’s minds.  Whatever the person fears most appears to materialize.  Those fearful of heights would suddenly be teetering on the edge of a building far above the ground.  Those afraid of snakes would have the room suddenly full of snakes.  Although the frightening images are not real, they feel real.  Most people become paralyzed with fear.   However, if the disciple will just keep his feel moving, he will eventually make it to the other side of the room. 

                The same is true with us.  If we will just keep our feet moving, eventually you will get to the other side.   After I was married for a few years I began to experience great anxiety when my husband would not return on time. This was before the days of cellphones, so I couldn’t just call him to make sure he was okay. My heart would pound, my palms would sweat, and my mind would race. I just knew the police were going to show up at the door, telling me that he had been killed.  By the time my husband would return home, I was an emotional wreck.  Part of me knew this was ridiculous, yet somehow, I just couldn’t help myself.  I felt stuck.  I knew that if I didn’t get control of myself, I would ruin a beautiful relationship.  I was fortunate in that I knew what had caused my anxiety.  When I was young my siblings, neighbors, and I were getting off the school bus when a potato truck failed to stop and killed my sister in front of us.  A few years before that my parents were divorced.  The closer and more dependent on my husband I became, the more my anxiety increased.  The day came when I decided that no matter what, I was going to beat this anxiety.  For me, it became a conscious choice.  It was not easy, but I would remind myself that my fear was more imagined than real.  I made a plan of what I would do if something were to happen, and then I reminded myself that as awful as that would be, I would survive it.  However, if I didn’t get control of my anxiety, it would destroy a great marriage.  It took practice, but I learned to control my thoughts.  In each new pregnancy, my anxiety would arise and I would remind myself that I was just feeling extra vulnerable.  It would be okay.  I overcame that anxiety eventually and got to the other side.  It was scary, it was hard, but I did it.  I was no longer a victim of my past, but a victor.  

                Maybe at times we feel we lack the skills necessary to fix the problem.  However, most of us have skills in other areas of our life that we can apply to our current problems. Ask yourself the following questions

1.        “What is something I enjoy doing and feel I do well?

2.        What skills are necessary for me to excel?  Think of your personal strengths that have made it possible for you to do well in this area.

3.       How might these strengths come in handy as I try to improve my current situation?  Most of our skills are transferable.  Be creative.  Think how you could apply what you do in situations where you feel confident and successful to other situations.  

  Expect Success

                Studies were done on the greatest predictor of a college student’s grades:  The single best predictor of one’s performance in college is one’s level of hope as a freshman.  What sets students of equal intellectual ability and past academic performance apart is the extent to which they expect to do well.  Pretty cool, no?

                Martin Seligman observed in Learned Optimism:

                  "The optimists and the pessimists: The defining characteristics of pessimists are that they tend to believe bad events will last a long time, will undermine everything they do, and are their own fault.  The optimists, who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world, think about misfortune in the opposite way.  They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback, that its causes are confined to this one case.  The optimists believe defeat is not their fault: Circumstances, bad luck, or other people brought it about.  Such people are unfazed by defeat. Confronted by a bad situation, they perceive it as a challenge and try harder."

                Start imagining yourself living out your dreams.  Envision what might happen if you allowed yourself, just for a moment to feel what it’s like to expect change.  Now just expecting change won’t make the difference, you must a have a plan, but believing that change is possible is the first step.  It gives you the hope necessary to produce the action in creating a happier, healthier relationship. 

Challenge

1.       Identify within yourself that what is keeping you stuck.  Is it fear, it is comfort in staying in the place you are, it is lack of motivation to make a change?  What is it?  If you can’t figure it out, decide today that for whatever reasons you have been stuck, you will commitment to change from this moment on.  Obviously, what you have tried isn’t working or you wouldn’t be stuck, so commit to trying something different until you find what works.

2.       Reflect on your strengths in one area and how you can use those strengths to deal with your current situation or problem.

Reference:

Rampa, T. L. (1957). The third eye; the autobiography of a Tibetan lama. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

Seligman, M. E. (1992). Learned Optism: Optism is essential for a good and successful life, you too can acquire it. North Sydney, N.S.W: Random House.

Weiner-Davis, M. (1996). Change your life and everyone in it: How to transform difficult relationships, overcome anxiety and depression, break free from self-defeating ways of thinking, feeling, and acting in one month or less. New York: Simon & Schuster.