“I am stuck in my routines and hate my life, and I cant get out”
I hear this from many friends, family and strangers and it happens to me on occasion. The inability to change your environment is a very disconcerting and awkward feeling. It gives us the sense of lack of control of our lives and it becomes demoralizing. With no way out, we resort to the continued struggle of our daily existence without hope. This unfortunately further digs our disappointing holes and we lead down the path of despair. How do we get this way and how do we get out of this rigamarole? In my opinion we get into this rut by not being aware of what is happening to us when things do happen and by allowing this cycle to continue. By being flippant or brave we keep shelving issues and locking them away into the drawer and not dealing with them either because we are too busy and not focussed or out of fear of having to deal with the issues and facing up to the consequences.
Nature is all about balance, and one good thing is that nature will make us face up to the imbalance even if we do not feel like it. It does this by the way the state of affairs makes us feel. You do not feel good, you seek out better health. You are too stressed, you develop ill health that forces you to change your ways. You are unhappy with your life, you feel the urge and the need to self preserve and modify your life. The more aware you are as life gets “thrown” at you as it happens moment to moment, the less you have to make a radical shift to fix the disequilibrium. Small adjustments to your attitude regularly will then not necessitate major adjustments later. By being focussed in the moment we actually deal with things as they happen fresh, versus dealing with them later, and then having to deal with not just one issue but a mountain of issues. We think by postponing issues we are being brave, but in fact its because of deep seated fears that we enjoy staying in our ignorance and in to the ostrich hole.
What are these issues? These are everything that comes our way in the form of stimuli. How we end up reacting to them determines how full or empty our drawers and in-baskets of misery get. Some examples.
The pangs of hunger…. we reach out for the chocolate donut in arms reach. We end up with sugar highs and lows, and feel horrible and in stressed conditions overeat. These continuous habits like this may lead to obesity and diabetes. We are miserable and curse the consequences and blame others for this problem that we are in. Solution, reach out for a healthier snack, and watch what you eat, quantity and quality. If we were more aware of the moment we should be able to be conscious of what we put into our own mouths.
We need to exercise….instead we feel tired and do not seize the opportunity to get into a better healthier routine, and then ill health sets in with complications. Being aware that the feeling of tiredness will be just transient we can overcome it and then “persuade’ ourselves to go exercise.
The child is crying and trying to get your attention….you turn on the TV and say watch this for a while, just so you can get some peace and quiet.The digital babysitter becomes the digital parent and then you have lost the opportunity to bond and connect with your child, that just needed a few minutes of connecting time. It then becomes too late when they are older to change their habits. Playstations, gameboys, xbox then become their friends. Try pulling them away from their new friends now.
Impulse buying…..you see an advertisement, or an item in someones’ possession and believe owning that item will make you superior or better off. You spend your earnings accordingly and then later regret being in debt from maxing out the credit cards. Simply pausing before the purchase and thinking whether the impulse felt is a necessity or not, changes your spending habits.
A disagreement with a friend or family member… you believe your point of view is correct, as usually is the case. You refuse to think about another point of view even for a second lest your ego is bruised. A fight ensues and you refuse to talk to the other person for a period of time. Hours, days, months and years may go by. That person may have even died, and now no chance at forgiveness and remorse to set you free, despair sets in, along with guilt. The chance to have said sorry, or completed the unfinished conversation lost, the misery lingers.
The unhappiness at the job…. you continue to keep accepting the abuse, till one day all you are doing is the job for the sake of a paycheck that you are beholden too. The reasons for why you did the job in that profession lost, you are miserable, unhappy, and lose your lustre. Solution was simple to begin with, in that you deal with the coworkers or the job tasks at the time they were getting overwhelming or borderline abusive and taken corrective action.
The impatience to get to work late….you started the day late, you rushed out the door and drove too quickly and got a speeding ticket. A little more mindful and cautionary driving would have avoided the ticket. A regrettable and unnecessary choice that in hindsight could have led to a different outcome had a shift in consciousness occurred.
There are countless examples unique to each individual but common to us all, that occur constantly in our daily lives that impact us detrimentally. Layers and layers of issues that are generated constantly, that pile up high till one day you are stuck in the mud. Unable to move out, unable to move forward. Stagnant, hurt and upset you exist and forget to live. A life full of different choices that make us feel that many bad choices were taken, ergo when we should have zigged instead of zagged, and the inertia of our lives sets in. The key to getting out of quick sand or mud is not to fight it, as that makes it worse. How do we get out of the sticky mud?
Gratitude. This is one of the fastest ways of realigning yourself with the universe and the abundant energy available to pull you out of your predicament. But how can you be thankful for the rotten things that happen? That is exactly the point, letting into the force that holds you, releases you too. Gratitude stirs up positive energy, which helps attract more positivity that finally helps break the shackles. Once broken, the shackle of your fears cannot hold you down and then you start changing the orbit of your life to higher levels, and your problematic issues descent to lower levels. At higher orbits a different perspective ensues, leading to more unlimited possibilities.
Start off with simple gratitude exercises, such as nightly “thank you” for 5 things that happened to you that day. Whether it is as simplistic as “thank you for being alive” or “thank you for being able to eat a meal” or “thank you for being able to come home”. Whatever the list, it has be yours, and not necessary to share it with anyone. As you progress, expand the exercises to 10, 15, 20 etc thank you encounters. If you choose to increase the level of difficulty of the exercise, you can make them non repetitive as your gratitude circle expands. Then in the morning before getting out of bed, come up with 5 things that you are going to be thankful for in your day. Let the miracle unfold as your exercises turn into positive energy creating wands. Then like Harry Potter, start waving your positive energy directed wands at your mud. Visualize yourself coming out of your “stuck”situations, and walking free on top of the mud piles. Now walking on water, I leave that up to the professionals, which if I am not mistaken only one person has done that in history !!
Free of being stuck? Help someone who still is….
