I'm Stuck

Road blocks to your dreams
http://www.purposefairy.com/7022/top-6-excuses-standing-in-the-way-of-your-dream/


I've sensed for awhile that I wasn't going anywhere.  Last night I sat here looking at today's post and didn't know what to write.  Please understand, I have over 100 started post ideas that I just need to finish and hit publish.  I have tabs up on my browser of articles I want to comment on and share with you but I'm stuck.  I'm not moving forward.   I realized this morning that also means I am not moving backwards.  I am exploring the advantages to some negative things. MyCounselor would get very frustrated with me when I get stuck.  He would probe and prod until I would move again.  However, I am no longer in counseling.  I don't have someone probing and prodding me to keep moving. In the Lozilu Mud run, I had the experience of trying to 'run' through a pit with mud thigh high.  Sprinting was not going to happen.  I curled my toes so that my shoes wouldn't get sucked off and slogged forward slowly.  If I tried to move too fast I was in peril of falling face first into the murky bog.  I felt stuck.  However, the reality was my daughter and I finally made it through.  We were thrilled.  This morning I woke up with ideas bouncing through my mind about what happens when I am stuck.  The advantage is I am not spiraling out of control.  I am not sinking.  I am not suicidal.  I am not free falling into a pit of darkness.  So what is the downside....there is always a downside to every challenge.  If I were a pilot flying around in a holding pattern, I would eventually run out of gas and crash.  Life doesn't sit well with stuck.  If you sit on a railroad track, you eventually get run over.  Mother nature hates stuck....doing nothing....an empty unused field is soon littered with sprouting weeds.  If I stay stuck, my life gets weedy and full of junk that I am really not interested in having around.  I got up this morning and browsed through my unused posts and found this article that I saved quite a while ago on Road blocks....that stuff that makes me feel stuck.

Top 6 Excuses Standing In The Way of Your Dream

Excuse #1: I’m not ___ enough

Have you felt that?  Have you heard the criticism blaring?  I know I have.  What am I feeling not_______enough about?  Criticism and discouragement tend to start up that tape that I heard many times before that I am not good-smart-strong-or fill in the blank enough to do something.  Yup, not enough can really have me feeling like staying stuck is all I am good enough to do.  Hmmm.

Excuse #2: I don’t have the money

I lived through a time in our lives with DH that we didn't make much money.  We rotate which bill we paid late to keep the letters from debtors down to mildly nasty.  Like not being enough, not enough money can become a state of mind.  Sometimes it is where I spend my money and sometimes it is unexpected bills like a medical emergency that can really suck away money.  I am also aware that some VERY wealthy people also live like the don't have enough money which they don't for how they are spending it.  When I feel like 'I don't have the money', I remind myself that the very best things in life are often free.

Excuse #3: I don’t have time

I had 3 teenagers in school at the same time, I worked full time, and took one class per semester that was not having time but was it?  Have you ever noticed that everyone, rich or poor, young or old, fat or thin, all have exactly 24 hours in a day.  How am I choosing to spend it that I don't have time?

Excuse #4: I’ve already started down one path, I can’t change direction

I hadn't thought of this excuse....but I suppose in a way I tend to do this.  I decide I want to follow a certain path and I get a ways down it I don't feel I can do something different.  I did this when I was working computers.  It wasn't until I was laid of that I realized, I really hated my job.  I loved what I did to fix computers but the environment I was in was sucking the life out of me.  Sometimes I need to review if the reason I feel stuck is because I don't want to go in that direction in the first place and it is my subconscious is quietly whispering, "Don't go there." 

Excuse #5: I’m too scared

Staying stuck is sometimes a reaction to being scared....you know that deer-in-the-headlights reaction.  You can see something terrible coming but too scared to do anything to stop it.  Yup, I get stuck when I feel that way.  Interesting to realize that being stuck is I'm scared.  Maybe I need to look around and figure out, what I am afraid of right now?  

Excuse #6: I’m not ready yet

I remember years ago watching a documentary that showed an African tribe ritual that a young boy to prove he was a man bungee jumped with a vine wrapped it around the foot.   The boy kept acting like he was about to go then just stood there....he was stuck.  Finally, one of the elders pushed him off.  The boy survived but I realized I hadn't felt ready yet when counseling kind of ended.  I also tell every new mother there is no such thing as feeling ready to be a mother.  Maybe feeling ready is an illusion, something that we don't actually feel.  Maybe why the slogan "Just Do It" is so awesome because I could spend a life time trying to get ready and never do anything....I think that I'm-not-ready-yet is just another name for fear of I can't do ____________ whatever it is that I am preparing to do.  Maybe, I just need to jump and figure out the rest on the way down. 

 This is a link to Bill Cosby's Noah....my favorite line "How long can you tread water?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlmIeH7DT_w


I found a link to a little kitten hanging onto the end of a rope for dear life.  The kitten is stuck....sometimes stuck isn't a bad thing....gives me time to consider my options.  The article with the picture gave me plenty of food for thought too.  Being in something for the long haul sometimes it is hard to see my progress.
http://www.paulfleischmann.net/hang-in-there-for-the-long-haul/