In every moment, we have a choice to move forward or remain stuck. When we feel stuck, it feels as if the same old things are repeating themselves or we’re just going through the motions. It may be fear and anxiety that keeps us from moving forward or making a necessary change. Yet, for someone else, it may be negative thoughts, old beliefs, or self-doubt. Being creatures of habit, we often make choices based on our past patterns or habits instead of what truly resonates with our soul’s path. Living this way, we feel stagnate, uninspired and our fear of change keeps us stuck in a holding pattern with life.
“Stuckness” is a state of paralysis where you feel unable to make a change. This sense of stuckness is at pandemic levels right now. As a collective, we are suffering from anxiety, depression, and hopelessness more than ever before. Most of us crave change and want to be free from suffering, but we don’t know how to create such freedom. Above all, we will continue to perpetuate these negative patterns, conditioning, and beliefs unless we do the transformational work to get unstuck and free ourselves.
Where does a sense of stuckness come from? It comes from past patterning and conditioning that has created repetitive mental grooves in your brain. Neuroscience has studied these neural pathways that your brain automatically takes most of the time without your permission. This neural system has become known as the “default network.” When you are awake and doing nothing, the baseline resting state of your brain activates this default mode which tends toward negativity. This is because one of its functions is to be vigilant to environmental threats which creates a background for fear and anxiety to thrive.
Being in default mode can be helpful when you need to remember a skill such as riding a bike or driving a car. However, most of the time, it engraves negative impressions that keeps you stuck in the past and from living in the present. It also tries to protect you from any pain by always having an automatic reaction. Fortunately, your brain can override this default mode and become unstuck. It’s capacity to learn and change itself is called “neuroplasticity.” Through mindfulness practices, you can make incremental changes in your neural network. In fact, you can actually change the neuropathways in your brain that promote a more positive, present, and dynamic way of being.
Here are 10 Sacred Strategies for Getting Unstuck & Freeing Yourself:
Practice Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness meditation teaches you how to notice your thoughts and feelings without reaction. You become an observer of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment. Find a comfortable place where you won’t be distracted. Take a series of slow deep breaths. Now imagine your mind as a vast blue sky and your thoughts as white billowy clouds. Notice your thoughts move across your mind as clouds move across the sky. Don’t try to analyze, judge or get caught up in them. Just pay attention to the thought until it leaves. Start with five minutes and gradually build up to ten-fifteen minutes every day.
Notice Your Habitual Reactions: Give yourself permission to pause when you notice any habitual reactions. Once you have a negative reaction to someone or something, the brain defaults to the next negative reaction when you face the same or a similar person or situation. When repeated habitually, these negative reactions can turn into a negative, fearful, or depressed mindset. If this person or situation makes you feel irritated, upset, or angry, then, you are stuck in that reaction and you are responsible for changing it. Change your habitual reaction by simply staying present with whatever is arising in your awareness. Change your reaction to a positive response even if it’s just pausing or walking away.
Move Your Body: Moving your body tells your brain that you are unstuck. Taking your body for a walk shifts the stuck energy to forward movement. Practice mindfulness moving by taking your mind, body, and spirit for a walk. Start your practice by going outside in nature for a fifteen-minute walk. As you walk, focus on your steps and how your body feels as it moves one step in front of the other. Observe yourself taking a step forward toward the future and then releasing your back foot, letting go of the past. The space between your steps is the present. Pay attention to this space with present awareness as you walk.
Take Deep Breaths: Slowing down and deepening your breath draws more oxygen into your body which reduces fear and restores balance to your nervous system. Focus on your breath, inhaling through your nose and exhaling out your mouth. On your inhale count up to five seconds as you breathe in, and on your exhale draw your breath out for ten seconds. Practice this until your breath is rhythmic, moves from your chest to your belly, and you feel calm and centered. A regular deep breathing practice can keep you from holding your breath in fear and remind you to move forward.
Trust Divine Timing: Sometimes when you feel stuck, it’s not that you’re not moving forward, it’s just that the timing isn’t right. This is when you must trust divine timing, not physical time. Know that the universe is conspiring with you, but does so in keeping with its own elevated timetable. Trust the divine unfolding of your life even if it’s not as you expected. When you let go of any expectations, outcomes, or plans, you will feel more likely to make a change and move forward. Allow things to be as they are without resistance. Breathe and let it all be.
Shift Your Perspective: Seeing life through a positive lens helps you embrace change. A change of scenery can do wonders to give you a new perspective. Take some time off and travel to a different place even if it’s taking a new way home from work. Appreciate the positive experiences in your life by attending to the present moment. Dwelling on your blessings and what’s working in your life will improve your mood.
Ask for Positive Feedback: When you are stuck, you’re not in the present awareness where new possibilities exist. You shut down this open feedback loop through judgment, rigid beliefs and negative thoughts. Your brain is in default mode bringing up the same past patterns and conditioned reactions. To break this negative feedback loop, ask for positive, corrective feedback from the people in your life that support you unconditionally, your soul support team. You can also do some on-line research or work with a professional therapist or coach.
Make A Choice: Fearful that you will make a wrong choice, you may become paralyzed and avoid choosing altogether. Not making a choice out of fear is still making a choice. Ask yourself: what if there wasn’t an obstacle? What if making a mess or a mistake was ok? What if my fear isn’t real? What if I made a new choice? What choice would I make? Then, make a choice even if it takes you in a different direction. Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. It will give you the spiritual information you need so you can choose what feels right to you.
Be Playful, Silly and Laugh: Watch funny movies, play with abandon, be silly with a friend, and laugh out loud. Expose your mind to higher awareness through music, art, and literature that inspires you. Lightheartedness helps you to not take life so seriously, maintain a positive mindset, and elevates your energy to a higher vibration.
Rituals of Release: A ritual of release can be a useful tool that can help release your pain from unresolved losses so it doesn’t become a stuck place or an energy block. They can include: burning old letters and cards, making a picture scrapbook, using old photos in a collage about the past, or creating a visual journal. Such rituals transform energy that is stuck from unresolved emotional pain or grief into positive healing experiences.
When you make inspired choices, you courageously move toward what you fear and out of stuckness. Allow yourself to let go of repetitive patterns; break negative habits; and embrace change as a mantra for your life. I invite you to get in the daily habit of using these sacred practices. Take consistent action to shift from stuckness to freedom. This will create healthy new habits that promote trust, confidence, and transformation in all areas of your life.
