How to Feel Free When You Feel Stuck
Feeling stuck in life isn’t a nice feeling at all.
I know because I’ve been there many, many times! The irony is, when we feel stuck in some area of our life, it’s usually us getting in the way and causing the resistance, rather than someone or something else blocking us.
It’s also nice to blame something external for our own so-called failings, yet if our environment and the people within it are just a reflection of our inner thoughts and feelings about ourselves and life, this no longer becomes an option for us.
While it’s tempting to stay in victim mode for something not happening in our life, it’s actually an invitation for us to look inwards, rather than outwards at who might be getting in our way.
Feeling stuck in life provides us with a powerful opportunity to create major change in our life, if we’re willing to do the work to make it happen, which is exactly what I’m going to be writing about.
As someone who has felt stuck in life many times, whether it’s been from jobs I’ve yearned to leave, places I’ve no longer wanted to live, or people that I want to break free from, I’ve realised some big things along the way.
I hope it serves as a gentle guide for you to encourage you to find your freedom, as well as a light of hope for you in perhaps a darker time in your life.
Why a fear of changes keeps us stuck
How to feel free when you feel stuck is quite an ambiguous title, so let’s break it down a little.
All of us yearn for freedom in our lives, whether it’s financial freedom to have more joy in our lives, physical freedom from illness, or emotional freedom from fear and self-doubt. And of course, I’m sure I’ve missed out on many more versions of freedom beyond these basic ones.
Yet, many of us feel beholden to our jobs, our responsibilities, and to people in our lives, so let’s start there.
One of the biggest reasons for feeling stuck in life is when we’re at a point of expansion and we can’t quite break through to the other side. It’s almost as if we’re squished against the glass ceiling of our potential, and we can’t quite break through.
When this happens it can create a lot of frustration, fear, and stress as we build up to change. We often don’t want to let go of what’s familiar and safe for us, so we hold on to a past version of ourselves, not realising that we cannot move forwards until we let that part of us go.
This is one of the biggest reasons why we can feel stuck in our lives—we want to change and we’re on the cusp of change, yet we can’t quite get over the final hurdle and reach the other side. While this is usually due to fear; whether it’s a fear of failure, a fear of success, a fear of judgement or anything in-between, it can also be due to a lack of confidence.
When we doubt ourselves, we often don’t want to take a step forward because deep down we just don’t believe that we can handle it.
All of us fear change, and no wonder, it can be truly terrifying. Yet, if you look at it rationally, at this moment of time that you’re reading this very sentence, you have overcome change after change after change in your life that has led you to exactly where you are now.
This shows us that while we may not like change, we are remarkably good at handling it. Take a moment to reflect back on all the changes you’ve experienced in your life. Change is a constant and we can’t avoid it, and it’s when we lean into it, bypassing the fear and self-doubt that tries to hold us back, that we can really excel forwards in our life.
Our role expectations that limit our freedom
Tied to this theme is the idea of role expectations, something I learnt about from a brilliantly clever writer Soren Dreier. He understood that we all slot into roles over the course of our lives. The problem arises when we want to change these roles and how badly the people around us want to keep us in those roles.
The expectations of others is often what keeps us trapped and stuck in our lives, without us fully realising it. And often, the more influential the person, the tighter the leash is on that role.
Which is why we all fall into the role of pleasing our parents, as best we can, even though logically we know that the decisions we make might please them but they don’t please us. This isn’t people-pleasing, this is fulfilling the role expectations that our parents place upon us that we feel beholden to live up to.
If we’re feeling stuck in our life it’s worth questioning who we have been trying to please by staying in a certain role. It may be that you’re the dutiful daughter who doesn’t want to let her parents down yet longs to live abroad. It may be that you’re the supportive son who takes care of the family business but who really wants to become an artist. Or perhaps you’re the welcoming wife who looks after her family but longs to fulfil her own passions.
These are slight clichés but the point is this; whether we realise it or not, we are all playing roles. If you’re feeling stuck in your life, take a look at the role that you’re playing and ask yourself whether it feels authentic and aligned to who you truly are or who you want others to see you as.
The link between comparison and our desire for freedom
A subject I really love to write about is comparison. Most likely because comparison is so sneaky and something I have struggled with so much in my life. I know I’m not alone in sharing that, and in our world of social media and constant visibility of the lives of strangers, celebrities, and friends, it’s no wonder so many of us compare our normal lives to the glossy highlights of others.
When we’re feeling stuck in life it’s worth taking a moment to feel how and where we might be comparing ourselves to those around us.
If we look at the life of someone else doing something that we want to do, not only can it cause feelings of jealousy, but it can also stir up frustration.
Usually comparison is accompanied by feelings of restlessness, irritability, and impatience, which can lead to us examining our own lives, feeling them lacking, and then looking for ways to escape them. Which, of course, leads us to feeling stuck as we realise we can’t just jump ship and leave our life.
People online always make it look so easy, but what we don’t see in that one-minute clip of them is the true reality of their lives; their hardships, their self-worth issues, or their struggles. This is worth remembering because scrolling through social media isn’t harmless.
It builds up, slowly and subtly, until we suddenly start to feel like our life isn’t enough and we need to change it. This is when we need to decipher between positively-driven change and negatively-driven change.
If we’re feeling stuck in our lives because we’re comparing ourselves to others and not feeling good enough, we need to change the story. I once tried to force change driven from a negative desire to escape from a job that I wasn’t enjoying. I decided to go on a ski season and work in the mountains, yet when I got out there, not only was I sick as a dog with E. coli but I then fractured my leg and couldn’t ski at all!
This is the perfect example of change that was driven by my desperate need to escape. I thought it would create more freedom in my life, but it ended up giving me less.
Three things to remember when you feel stuck
Change can be wonderful, and ultimately all of my decisions led me to the perfect point in time, which is exactly where I am now. Yet, when I felt stuck and rushed into decisions, it didn’t always end up so well for me.
So my advice is this. If you’re feeling stuck and want to feel free, get clear on the fear that is holding you back. Perhaps you’re in a low place now, but I promise you that you won’t be for long. Change is a natural part of this life and everything always moves forward, whether we want it to or not.
Once you understand your fear, feel into the role that might be containing you and holding you back. It is not selfish to pursue your own dreams and goals in this lifetime. It is your life, and yours alone, so you may do with it what you please. Of course, we need to be considerate of others, but not to the detriment of our own joy, well-being and purpose.
Lastly, take a step back from whatever life you might be comparing yours to. By easing your foot off the social media, you’ll discover a huge amount of relaxation, as well as time, energy, and space, that you can use to create whatever you wish in your life.
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