"Unstuck" Yourself

To feel stuck in life is to feel disempowered and out of control. It's important to recognize if you are feeling disempowered and take charge of your own life. Feeling stuck also means being afraid of change and seeking external validation. To become unstuck, one must trust themselves and their ability to keep themselves safe. It's crucial to shift from seeking external validation to internally validating oneself. When feeling stuck, it's common to focus on perceived losses instead of what can be gained. Finally, doubting that you deserve better can also keep you feeling stuck. Believing in yourself and your dreams is key to breaking free. This is Kate Rose and welcome to Soul Gold. Reflect for a minute and think. Where in your life do you feel stuck or when did you feel stuck but have swallowed down those feelings? At a certain point, each of us feels stuck as if there's no space for change, no room to make things better, and that we're unable to change what we wish that we could. Being stuck is when the life you thought you wanted tries to merge with the person that you've become. But instead of it serving as an inspiration for what you want, it instead feels like there are no other options other than to carry out what has already been in place. But the really wonderful, even if unbelievable, thing is, you are never actually stuck. You are not stuck and no one is ever stuck in a specific situation. Do some require more navigation or preparation than others? Of course. But that doesn't mean that you're truly stuck. And in many ways, it's also the universe asking you, and maybe even testing you, with one important question. How badly do you want what you say you want? Whether you feel stuck in a marriage that is lacking passion or love, in a job that you no longer feel excited about, maybe living in an area that you've come to no longer really resonate with or that doesn't feel like home, or even any other aspect of your life, you have the power to change things. You have the power to unstuck yourself. But to really unstuck yourself, you have to understand what is really keeping you there, more than the excuses that, well, there's just no other option. I can't. This is, you know, I made my bed and now I have to lie in it. When you're feeling stuck, cornered, or as if you must continue anything, it's never because of what specific scenarios you have going on in your life, but instead, as with everything, it's your emotional and mental processing of your current situation. So, let's explore some of the reasons why you, and even why myself at different times, have felt stuck in your life. To feel stuck is to feel disempowered. You aren't feeling in control over your own life. You struggle to believe that you have the ability to change your life in the ways you desire, and you look instead outside of yourself for something else to change, for things to magically transform, or even for permission from others that it's safe to change. Being disempowered can be the result of childhood wounding, especially if you weren't given autonomy to make your own choices, or you had to develop a trauma-based reaction to fear. So, instead of that aspect of desire for change pushing you, you freeze and simply hope that things will change for you instead of you being the one to change them. It's important to recognize if you are feeling disempowered because it's not going to be success. It's not going to be that amazing relationship or that promotion you're dreaming of that makes you feel empowered. Feeling empowered comes from your own ability to take absolute presence with yourself, to recognize that you are in charge of yourself. You are in charge of your life. And even if you have perhaps given it away at times, you actually are the one who is in charge of deciding what kind of life you are going to live. To feel unstuck is to no longer trust your fears. When we feel stuck, it also means that we're afraid, even if we're not necessarily admitting it to ourselves or even to others. Your brain, interestingly enough, as intelligent as we all are, or have the ability to be, our brain is pretty basic. Our brain is conditioned to do only one thing at all times, and that's for all of us to keep us safe. Obviously, this is something that's evolved over time. We no longer, most of us, have to be afraid of keeping ourselves safe from predators, but we still are in this aspect of safety being the core reason for our brains. We are to keep ourselves safe in whatever that might mean, whether it's physical safety, emotional safety, mental, knowing what to expect, whatever it might be. But the problem exists that just because your brain sees change as a threat doesn't mean that what you'd be moving into is truly worse than where you are now. But your brain is going to resist change because it sees it as a threat to your overall life. This is also something while all humans kind of possess this desire of our brains to keep ourselves safe and being afraid of change, it also comes down to the ways many of us were parented or maybe even have parented our own kids. Don't touch that. It's hot. Don't climb on top of that. You could fall. Many of the cause and effects that we were given is don't do something because of the fear of what could happen. Instead of, let's say, logically explaining, it's hot, there's a chance you could burn yourself. You could burn your leg, whatever it might be. It was just this aspect of don't do this thing, whatever this thing is, because there is fear. To become uncomfortable in the unknown, it comes down to one thing, learning to build trust and security within your inner self. So rather than thinking your safety rests on outer situations in your life staying the same, instead you will know that you can keep yourself safe no matter what changes you seek in your life. That's coming home to yourself. That's realizing that it's not the house, the relationship, the job, none of those things actually bring you safety. You are safe within yourself. You create your own safety. To feel stuck in your life is to still be looking for external validation. This shift from being externally validated to internally validating yourself presents as a massive shift in your life. This is one of those moments where there will forever be a before and an after. When you are still seeking external validation, which is absolutely a product of your childhood condition or, truthfully, even our society at large, you are basing your choices on those that are deemed good, acceptable, and approved by others. This means you don't want to upset others. You don't want to let them down, see you as a bad person, have them be disappointed, hear their opinions of you change, but sometimes it also comes from not wanting to do something different because part of our brains, not only is it safety, but it's we must blend in. We must do what everybody else is doing. Then there is no threat. Fortunately, unfortunately, how you might look at it, many times our best life is not found in not being seen, in continuing the path or the conditioning or not doing something different. You have a unique purpose in this lifetime, but to actually be able to live it, to feel as if you are living a life that is aligned with your soul, you're also going to need to be in the place to not care what others say, to not rest your decisions on whether someone thinks you're a good person or you're joyful or you're beautiful or you're rich or you're famous or handsome or whatever it is. How you feel about yourself and your life only comes down to one thing. How do you feel about it? How do you genuinely feel? What do you actually want? Many times asking ourselves what we really want isn't something we do nearly as often as we should, but when you can make that shift to internally validating the need to make decisions for others no longer matters. Internal validation speaks to if you are on a deserted island, maybe many of us would want to be on a deserted island at this moment, with no work to be done, no children to look after, no partner to spoil, nobody to hold the door to or for when you're walking into the store, if there was nobody around but yourself, how would you feel good about yourself? When I work with clients, I always suggest a journal activity where they list what makes them feel like a good person, but the one caveat is they can't say it's because they're a good parent, spouse or even sister. It's the challenge to list qualities within and of yourself that are present regardless of if you are around others or not. Once you can shift your validation to only coming from within, not only can you create a life more aligned to your soul, but you also become wildly dangerous because you're going against the status quo and never again will you ever make a decision solely for the happiness of others. To feel stuck is fixating only on what your perceived losses would be. Many times when thinking about leaving a marriage or even a job, it's natural to think only about what it feels like you will have to sacrifice or the perception of loss. This means you say, oh, I can't leave my marriage because I won't see my kids as much. I'll lose some of my income or I can't leave my job because the hours might not be as flexible or I wouldn't be able to have that option for that promotion in three years. When you are facing feeling stuck, part of your brain protecting you is also looking at what you are perceiving that you will be losing instead of focusing on all that you'll be gaining. While any big change in life requires a sacrifice, many times what we think we're giving up in the moment ends up being absolutely nothing compared to what we eventually gain. But to truly make the choices that you need to for yourself, you also need to be in the position to open up the space for all you have to gain, leaving some room for the unknown to be positive and not only negative. To feel stuck is to doubt that you deserve better. While this can have a bit to do with fears and even self-validation, the mentality that if you go through this process of change and it doesn't feel like it guarantees things will be better is a common reason many use to avoid change altogether. This is what I call a symptom of good enough. Well, my husband is good enough, he's not that bad, my job really is okay, I mean it could be worse. Just because a situation could be worse doesn't mean that it also couldn't be even better. But this comes down to believing in yourself, in your dreams, and most importantly, in what you deserve. When you can genuinely embody a feeling that you don't just deserve better, but the life of your dreams is not all that far away. Because it's not a matter of anything being good enough, but in truly knowing not only could it be better, but actually owning your power and determination to make it so. To unstuck from those most impossible situations in life, it doesn't begin in simply just taking action though, although that's what most of us focus on. It actually begins in going through those same themes I just mentioned, building up your inner power, self-validation, worthiness, hope, and even optimism. Because it's not what you do that will break up that feeling of being stuck, but in how you feel. You could try to simply take action without going into all of these emotional pieces, but then it's also common that eventually you might self-sabotage, become frozen at a particular step, or worse yet, you could go back to the very place you'd wanted to escape from, either literally the same job, same relationship, or one that has just enough similarities that you're once again going to be triggered. What I truly believe, and what I practice, is that we call in certain situations in our life because of what we can learn from them. So if you're feeling stuck, it's not that you made a mistake, it's not because your partner suddenly changed overnight, or even because your company was just sold, but because you attracted this situation to learn something important within yourself. You are able to make any changes you want in your life. This is not a myth, or even the fairy tale of the conscious community, because what you believe to be true will eventually manifest. And let's say that again. What you believe to be true will eventually manifest. But when you can focus your energy on believing in what you actually want to happen or occur, the life you want to live, that relationship, job, then you're also going to be moving with stronger energy and attracting what it is that you actually want. Many times, it's actually of benefit to make your biggest plans in secret. This doesn't mean that you can't tell a close friend or even someone that you love, but just because you have a dream doesn't mean that those in your life will share that dream. It doesn't mean that their own wounds or regrets won't get in the way of you creating a life that you love. And so often, to avoid some of those fears or even aspects of external validation, it's better to move in silence. Work on yourself. Build yourself up so much that there is no space for the opinions of others, and then begin to take action. Just remember though, no matter how empowered or how ready you are, it doesn't mean that you're not ever going to feel any fear. Fear, again, is simply the unknown. It's our brain saying, hey, wait a minute, I don't know what's going to happen, this feels different, I'm afraid we should stay the same. The idea is to find about 80% confidence in whatever decision or action you're going to take. 100% is unrealistic, as there's always the aspect of the unknown, there'll always be some fear, and as humans, we are also never meant to become perfect, but 80% is all you need in order to begin to take action. But even with that 80%, you will still have fear, simply because you're doing something new, and going back to how your brain protects you, that means it's the same. Practice affirmations over how you trust yourself, that you have faith in your abilities, and also allow yourself to move through the fear, because this is how you recondition your brain to see that safety isn't always what is known, but most often, in what is unknown. As you grow, as you heal, your life should become better, but that also means that you're going to need to take a chance to make it happen. The best moments in life really have yet to occur, but you have to believe that with your entire soul in order to truly see it manifested. You have to stop saying you're stuck, or there's no other options. You must cease waiting for something to happen, and instead, make something happen for yourself. And of course, life is not a Disney classic, no matter how much we might wish it is. There is no one coming to rescue you, so go rescue your inner child from the life you no longer want to live, and empower yourself to live the life of your dreams. Unstuck yourself so you can finally live the life that you are destined to. Years ago, when I first did my first retreat back in 2019, 2018, I believe, I had to come up with a name for it. What do I name this adventure that I want to take with people around the world to help us grow, help us learn, and have a lot of fun, of course. And what I came up with was, take a chance to change your life. So I'm going to leave you with that, the nugget for today. Take a chance to change your life. If you already are at the good enough phase, then you actually already don't have anything to lose. The only thing that you actually will lose is the belief you have in yourself, the self-power, your sense of worthiness. Nothing is ever gained unless something is risked. And so take a chance to change your life. Take a chance on yourself, on believing in yourself, on your dreams, on all that is possible. If you simply said, hey, wait a second, this actually isn't what I want, and so now I'm going to do what I want. And if that means certain people are unhappy with me because I'm ruining their story of who I should have been, well, maybe they should have asked the writer, because that's me. You deserve to be aligned to your life, to feel happy and satisfied in knowing that you are living a life of purpose. But to do that, you have to take a chance. Take a chance on change. Here are some affirmations to help if you are feeling stuck in your life and you're looking for that big moment, that point where things will be able to be easier, be different moving forward. I am empowered to make changes in my life. I am able to create the life of my dreams. My opinion matters over those of all others. This is my life, and so how I feel is most important. I do not need fear to keep me safe anymore, because I can keep myself safe. I trust that I am able to live the life of my dreams. This has been soul gold. May you never stop seeking what you know is meant for you.