Who hasn’t felt stuck? Stuck in one way or another, there is always a time in our lives that we look around and everything is moving so fast except us. How did it happen? Why am I stuck? What keeps me stuck? Do I run or try to fix it, but where do I start? And the longer we are there wondering how it started and why we can’t move, time continues to tick.
Being stuck is like being a prisoner of the system we are living in. I don’t mean of the government necessarily but because of the many systems that exist in our society such as work, school, family, partners, emotionally, spiritually, physically, etc. (although I can’t think of another way of being stuck).
But what keeps us stuck in this paradoxical prison?
In my personal life and in my profession, it has taught me that my greatest prison has been wishful thinking. Living in the wanting of something or of someone, or of a change to happen. How can it happen if we don’t do something about it? For many years I would wake up every morning wishing my life was different. I had put on my own handcuffs and just peered out the window as I envied the life I wish I had. I envied the other me who in another possible dimension was living the life that I wished I had. But instead I thought I was stuck where I was. Too afraid to make the move. I started having anxiety, followed by depression and in three years I was having panic attacks on a daily basis.
A change needed to happen.
As I watched myself feeling more and more stuck, aching for a change, I finally spoke to a great mentor of mine about what I was going through. She had been listening to me patiently, as I complained about my heart palpitations and how I was going to a different doctor every week. She said to me, “you need to change something that isn’t going right in your life”. I gazed at her in disbelief and played off that my life was perfect, and reminded her that my grandmother had heart problems and I had inherited that. That night I sat alone on my bed, watching through the window hundreds of lights from neighboring buildings and again envied them for looking so happy, having dinner with family and friends, and I was there alone.
I didn’t want to exist just to exist.
One day, as I was feeling pushed to the brink in my life I decided I deserved better. I did not want to continue being a body walking around in negativity. It was in early February, a cool morning for Miami (temperature in the 60's), as I walked across the vast parking lot of my job, I decided I was going to give my resignation notice and recalculate my life. I did not have much savings but I had a small editing job I had been doing on the side and it was a steady income to survive with paying my car insurance and groceries. In disbelief they accepted my resignation (I had a good position), and off to new pastures. I felt one handcuff was off. Now focusing on the next cuff.
It had to be done quickly.
It was not calculated but it happened. Somehow my new found freedom allowed me to have some self care. I had built my safe space where I did much meditation and breathing exercises. My mind had become clear and the most powerful thought that came to me was that I needed to not wait. I am fully capable to do things on my own without waiting for anyone else. I need to learn to be independent in every way. I had new goals!! Why didn’t I think about this before? I was setting up goals for hundreds of people in my old job, why not for me? I created a timeline in a mail-in credit card application envelope and threw it away, I was in my mind.
The last cuff.
And just like that, the second cuff came off. The second cuff came off easier than expected. I sat alone at the terrace of a beautiful restaurant in Costa Rica, overlooking the mountains and the city. It was easier than expected but still painful to be part of. Now I was part of the group of people who could smile, try new things, feel excitement in my life. No one was there to bring me down, to remind me of how I can’t do things, no one to bring up imperfections. I made myself smile, and wait! The smile happened so easily. I was part of my life again, I was not an outsider peering out the window.
To be continued…
