Do You Think you’re the Only One Who Ever Gets Stuck?
It’s easy to feel stuck – but you are not the only one.
As I started to consider what to write today, I found myself stuck.
The usual time I make to do this writing came and went. And still, I felt stuck. Nothing sat right in my head, and I just couldn’t put the words in order.
Then I read through my Medium daily digest. And as if the Powers-that-be knew what I needed, multiple articles on a similar notion popped up.
This addressed the problem that I was facing. Stuck. Uncertain what to do, what to say, and where to go.
This showed me that I was not alone in this fight. Clearly, if multiple articles are coming up on this same topic – I’m not the only one facing this issue.
But I realized the question is still worth addressing. Because to get an answer, it had to be asked.
Do you think you’re the only one who ever gets stuck?
Why you might think you’re alone
Despite evidence that other people get stuck, too, it can still feel as if you’re on your own. All alone, stuck in a way nobody else is or has been.
And that’s the real issue. It’s not that others don’t get stuck – it’s the how, why, when, etc. What you are presently stuck on or in feels unique. Particularly when you know it’s all on you.
Everyone gets stuck from time to time. But there are some very common experiences most people have in this realm.
You get stuck on a question doing homework for school. Perhaps you get stuck resolving a relationship conflict – platonic or intimate. Most people get stuck doing something for their job somewhere along the way.
Most of these have a common cause. They’re related to the unfamiliar. You’re experiencing something you’ve never done, seen, or whatever, before. Of course, you get stuck. This is new. Because it’s new – the experience is unknown and uncertain.
That’s why these are more common. I don’t know anyone who has not encountered one or all of them.
But what about when you have passed from a common experience to one more unique? As you grow and change, your perceptions, and experiences – mixed with life lessons, biases, prejudices, beliefs, values, and more – shape you differently from me. Or anyone else.
That puts you in a position where you can get stuck in a way that doesn’t appear to resonate outside of your head, heart, and soul. That leads to the question – do you think you’re the only one who gets stuck?
You’re not the only one who gets stuck
Let’s get straight to the point here. Everyone experiences getting stuck in one way or another. It’s part of life, growth, change, and the like.
Why? Because change is the one and only constant in the Universe. Because of this truth – change happens. Even when you don’t want change to happen.
Not all instances of getting stuck are a direct result of change. Sometimes they come from a combination of change simply occurring – and you not keeping up. Other times, they come from uncertainty as you actively work on change.
And then, of course, sometimes you’re stuck due to something wholly outside your control.
If you’ve lived peacefully in a city in Ukraine for most of your life – and find yourself evacuating due to Russian bombings – you’re stuck in a situation you can’t control. Less dangerously, if you are fired from a job, dumped by a lover, involved in a car accident, or the like – you also can get stuck in a situation you can’t control.
Each of the above examples are vastly different. Why? Because of the impact and facts of the experience. If you lose your home to a bomb – but are unscathed, that’s different from someone in the same boat who was injured. Though less serious, if you are fired from your job but have a decent cushion of investments and savings, you’re differently stuck from someone who was living paycheck to paycheck.
But stuck is stuck. The what and how varies – sometimes drastically. But you’re not alone in getting stuck.
Mindfulness of your self and your situation
Getting unstuck is going to vary depending on the type, challenges, and degree of complexities of how you’re stuck. What it takes the person in Ukraine suffering from a surreal invasion versus someone at the end of a relationship to get unstuck are circumstantially vastly different.
But they do share a common starting point. Mindfulness.
Being consciously aware of how you’re stuck is going to be the first step in getting unstuck. While the actual work it takes to get unstuck might vary rather dramatically – the starting point is the same.
Mindfulness is conscious awareness of what, how, where, why, who, and when you are. It’s both an internal and external conscious awareness.
You gain external conscious awareness via sensory input. What you see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and intuit all blend to report the world without. You gain internal conscious awareness via recognizing and acknowledging what you are thinking, what and how you’re feeling, the actions you’re taking, and the intentions behind those actions. Together, these report the world within.
The internal knowledge also gives insight into your subconscious, ego, and consciousness – and how they blend.
Together, internal and external mindfulness can tell you how you are stuck if you are. Because sometimes that feeling is hard to clarify and pinpoint.
Mindfulness is the answer. Conscious awareness, here and now, will tell you how you are stuck.
How do you get unstuck? That depends on the factors and degree of stuck that you are at. But recognizing and acknowledging the what of you being stuck is how you start to get unstuck.
Knowing that you are not the only one who is stuck or gets stuck, it’s easier to share, without shame, guilt, or fear. And then ask for help if needs be.
Recognizing how you are stuck isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions.
When you recognize that you are stuck, you can apply your conscious awareness – mindfulness – here and now to recognize the factors that have gotten you there – and to what degree you are. Knowing that you are definitely not the only one who gets stuck, you can make use of this knowledge to reach out for help – or share what you’re going through to gain insight without shame, guilt, or fear. That empowers me – and it can empower you, too. We can make use of this to stay more neutral subconsciously, while consciously choosing things leaning towards the positive end of life’s extremes.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast space that exists between them – shifts the concept in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between those extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Lastly, I believe the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experience will be. If that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and twenty-sixth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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