STUCK? HERE'S HOW TO GET TRACTION

GETTING UNSTUCK

“Imagine what it would be like to live in a world where you are more concerned about what you have to offer than what you have to hide.” ~Unknown

As “What-Ifs” go, this one is a power-keg! It invites us to imagine a world very different from the one most of we Westerners live in. The current state of the world is better described by the poster I once spied in the office of a political advisor – “protect, defend, and resist”. I could hardly agree less. I far prefer this quote from Irving Wallace’s “The Seventh Secret”, which suggests, “Connect, Understand and Accept…”

Why is this Secret so important, at least to me? Well for one thing, it's the way the universe without humans is stitched together, haven't you noticed? No? Perhaps you might get out more – into nature.

Connect, Understand and Accept becomes even more relevant at those times when you feel you're stuck in some kind of rut that's limiting your freedom to play around in the playground. That has been me at several times in my earlier life – paddling like hell and getting nowhere. And at such times, a quiet inner inspection usually reveals that, somewhere in there, I’ve been protecting or defending the very thing that’s keeping me stuck, and resisting the call to change. The instant that I’ve let go of the “protect, defend and resist” habit, the atmosphere relaxes, space and daylight start seeping through and life gets sweeter.

Do you feel stuck? Or is it possible you're stuck and you don't know it – you just have this feeling that there has to be more to life than what you've been experiencing lately?

A TEST FOR STUCKNESS

American psychologist, Dr. Phil McGraw has come up with some neat questions that may help you clarify if you're stuck or not. Would you like to know? Well have a look at each of these and give yourself a rating out of 10, where 0 = Never, and 10 = A helluva lot.

Here goes:

• Do you spend a high percentage of your time each day (more than 3 hours) on a couch or in a chair with your attention lost to what's on some kind of screen?
• When you're at home, do you find yourself wearing the same house-dress, T-shirt and baggy pants, shorts or pyjamas that have become some kind of “indoor uniform” for you?
• Do you stand staring into the refrigerator, looking for something that wasn't there when you last looked a few minutes ago?
• Do you feel like you're a cheap-seats spectator to other people's lives?
• Do you live vicariously through characters on TV, and discuss with others what happens on “reality” shows as if they actually are real?
• Do you actually count and recount the items in your shopping trolley before you decide whether to dive into the Express Checkout Lane?
• Is your job or your kids all you ever talk about for more than 3 minutes at a stretch?
• On the rare occasions you do go out “for fun”, do you spend more than 3 minutes debating with yourself where to go?
• When you do eat out, are they at places where you have to look up, or look down to read the menu?
• Do you have sex quarterly and within a time frame that lets you get on with something else?
• Do you fantasise about things you never actually do?
• Are you suspicious of the genuineness of people who look really happy? Is there a lurking thought that “they're faking it”?
• Do you have a lesser standard of conduct when you are alone than when you are in the company of others?
• Is the most exciting thing that has ever happened in your life something that has already happened?
• In that twilight zone while you are awakening, is there a moment of dread at the start of another day before you tuck it away out of sight?
• Do you ever feel alone, even while other people are around?
• Do you ever feel “bored with....”?
• Do your appearance and standards of grooming and personal hygiene appear to be on the decline?
• Is your main goal in life mainly focussed on how to get through the coming week or month?
• Do you say “No” to a high percentage of questions, regardless of what the question is?
• In order for you to meet someone new, do they have to throw themselves under your bus, or pull up a chair between you and something you're lost in?

How are you doing now? Got a clearer picture?

To get ourselves unstuck from thought, feeling and habit patterns that prevent us from spreading our wings and soaring to a life we were born to live, we must also remember that our world is changing rapidly. Although there have always been dangers and threats, they appear to be coming at us faster, and seem noticeably heightened with the advent of the information age and its instant forms of digital communication. Our sense of safety is also impacted by real major life transitions we all experience: job security, financial challenges, illnesses, loss of a loved one, aging, moving home, etc. We also allow our equanimity to be undermined by the unchallenged efforts of well-resourced businesses and political organisations who do their effective best to raise our anxiety levels “for our own good” with fake threats about everything from the kind of deodorant we use to terrorists under the tarpaulin.

In the face of this, I think it is no wonder we find ourselves a little breathless, bewildered and sometimes averse to change. We reach a point where we silently protest “Please just back off for a minute – gimme a break!!” Very understandable. (I sincerely wish we could grant the same understanding to those poor wretches we’ve trapped on Manus, Christmas and Nauru).

If we want to get unstuck, live lives of quality and dignity, accomplish our dreams, celebrate our talents, and pass on our gifts and wisdom to others, we would be wise to take The Secret to heart: Let go of protecting, defending and resisting. Just notice when you're doing it, take a deeper breath, and just stop. Do nothing until it subsides. Let nothing be there for as long as you can. Then consciously and deliberately Accept something in this moment. It doesn't matter what it is..... the way the room is, a feeling you've got – anything simple will do. Just accept it as it is. Then Explore something – such as getting a cup of coffee or going to the toilet.... just be deliberately present and available for the whole of it. Engage with it. Do this as often as you remember to, until these moments of aliveness become proactive habits.

Transformation requires clear intention, courage and persistence, but the very act of purposely taking on such a challenge empowers you to transform where you may feel stuck. I use the word “transform” very deliberately. This isn’t about change. Change is when a caterpillar turns into a bigger, fatter caterpillar; transformation is when it turns into a butterfly. In your case, the actual circumstances of your life may not immediately change. What will change is that your feelings of being stuck begin to become transparent and dissolve. You become aware that you have freedom to choose something different. Do it. Maybe go for a slow walk around the block before you make that cup of coffee, and pay attention to how your body/mind feels 5 minutes after you get back. If you do, even the coffee will taste different this time, I guarantee it.

The good news is that external circumstances and emotional climate do not have to change in order for you to get unstuck. Your Circumstances and Being Stuck are not connected anywhere other than in your mind and that connection is imaginary. Other people are confronted with the same circumstances as you and, rather than get stuck, some of them seem to be able to rise above the situation and use it for a launching pad to something bigger and brighter. Those who opt to stay stuck get together and either join in a group whinge about how they’ve been “wronged”, or compete with each other to play “I've Been Wronged More Than You?”

So what's the difference between committed victims and those who say “Nup Not for me.”  Former victims who embrace The Change find their lives transforming when they stop seeing their circumstances as “the problem”, and begin looking at them instead as opportunities in disguise for them to completely change direction.

In my one-upon-a-time need to be one of the herd, I used to be a devout victim, until I made a conscious choice to take another road and become one of the “others” I've just cited. I did some research and found out how they made the switch. Then I did it…. again and again and again until Life got the message – “Barrie has changed his mind”. That's when reality flipped over and I discovered that, where there is a perceived threat, there can be a new sense of openness and curiosity, empathy, accord and, dare I say, reassurance and gratitude! Where there used to be distrust, there can now be greater receptivity, balance and the ability to stay in the present more often.

All you have to do to change your experiences of life is to change is your mind. That can be hard to do in company, though, because a lot of “other people” get twitchy when you change your mind, have you noticed? And some of them will really put the screws on you to “conform”. They need you to  obey their "Do Not Disturb" rules.

Change is worth the price of courage, though. This new mind-change approach will give you a new sense of freedom, new levels of energy and passion and a greater understanding of the role your temperament, your personality, your identities, your attitudes and your beliefs play in determining the quality of your life.

It will also give you the insights and power to rewrite your past without changing the facts, re-constitute your present as the time and opportunity to break with your conditioning, and re-envision your future as a panorama of consequences -- some foreseen and some pleasant surprises -- of your transforming.

In the end, it all comes down to what and how you choose your options. Each of us can choose to be reactive and at the mercy of a world that appears threatening, or we can choose to be open to life and its remarkable possibilities. We can plod on being defensive and protective, or we can live with a new spring in our step and spirit, eyes that truly see, ears that really hear, and a heart that can feel a growing wonder and celebrate the magnificent mystery that is life unfolding.

In every now moment you become open to possibility, rather than reliant on defence against threats. Are those threats real? Yes, they are. But mostly only in your mind. An imagined threat is just as real to the sufferer as an actual threat; emotional memory does not discriminate.

What matters now, though, is how you respond to what's “real” for you. It may help to know that most of your fears are imagined rather than actual. But that knowledge alone isn't going to fix them. Your fears – none of them, were ever reasoned into in the first place, so logical reasoning is not going to cleanse you of them. I've tried that over and over – it never, ever worked for more than 30 seconds. The way out is through emotionally. Drop every temptation to label a feeling because labelling a thing distances you from the thing. Be with your actual feelings as fully as you can, for as long as it takes until they leave you be.

Change is one of life’s true constants. But transitions like changing jobs, moving homes, losing loved ones, and getting divorced can be hideously trying, confusing, and very, very scary. Even when change is positive, it’s usually not possible to experience it without an up-front impulse to recoil and withdraw, and at least a little bit of trepidation when you choose to notice that, and engage with it anyway.

Because of fear, the first step is possibly the most difficult – to open yourself kindly and willingly, in the face of panic at becoming vulnerable, to the present you have brought yourself to. Later steps will still be accompanied by varying degrees of trepidation and uncertainty, but as you get more practised at embracing fear and going ahead anyway, you’ll get better at it and, hopefully, reach a place similar to mine where a twinge of raw anxiety is a signal to me that “that's where I need to go.” It's an indicator sign that has never misled me. Instead of defending and protecting, you can live with your eyes and ears fully open. It’s amazing what just a slight shift in perspective can do…like falling in love, it can make all the difference in the world. 

In fact venturing out of your shell IS falling in love. With Life.

Three final things that I've noticed -- 

• Life never misses an opportunity to offer us new chances and fresh starts.
• Life’s timing is spot-on. We are never thrown a challenge that is so great that we can't keep our balance even when we feel like we are on the shakiest ground. Life knows when we're ready, often some time before we do. Sometimes I've been right through a crisis before I realised “Wow, I was ready for that!”
• If we develop a new habit of purposefully accepting life's invitations to rumble – if we embrace challenges and changes as they are delivered to us, reconnecting with ourselves to become more capable, enlightened and empowered, it is not only possible, or even probable, but actually certain we can finally sign off on something important that we came for.