"UnStuck!"

I often get stumped with the question, “What exactly is it you do?”  For just about anyone in any field, if anyone should have an answer to this question it should be the person receiving it.  I usually get stumped because it’s different for everyone I work with.  Everyone has their own set of particular problems and their own particular need.  So an answer I give to one person may completely miss addressing the needs for another.

As I sit and think of the best way to describe what exactly it is that I do without weeding out people who have a particular need, I’m left with one word, unstuck.  I help people get unstuck.  We all have areas of, or times in our lives when we feel stuck.  Sometimes things come to a head and we are able to find and act on a solution that resolves the matter.  Freed, we move forward on our merry way.  However, there are times when we get busy, feel overwhelmed, and become frustrated with the options we’ve outlined.  Instead of being able to create positive solutions we can act on, we throw a band aide on or push the issue under the rug.  Unfortunately, under the band aide the wound festers and grows.  Under the rug, can no longer conceal all that is swept under.  What once was hidden is now glaringly obvious to all around us.  It gets to the point that the issue is no longer a problem, but rather and extension of our personality.  People even begin to see it as a synonymous identifier of our personality and character.

Once we get to this point, the problem begins to run our lives.  Showing up in our daily behaviors to the extent that others can recite the script in our heads.  They may even be part of the problem by making excuses for us because they’ve bought into our helplessness. Or, perhaps they’ve written us off completely, dismissing our plight and label us not just helpless, but hopeless. By this time they are too close to have a vision for anything beyond the box we’ve placed ourselves in.

So, back to what I do. I help people get unstuck.  Unstuck from their problems. Unstuck from the story they tell themselves that keeps them small or in a victim state. Unstuck from emotions that seem so big that their bodies have an adverse reaction to their own minds.  Unstuck from resentments that they’ve used to fortify a story that no longer serves them.  Unstuck from behaviors that give them the opposite of what they actually want and have hurt both themselves and those around them.  Unstuck from feelings that were intended to serve them by encouraging action, but have piled up to the point that the overwhelm hides the simplest starting point.  So we uncover that hidden starting point together and move through the paralysis.

Getting unstuck often leaves a space.  When people become unstuck what was removed will easily slip back into place as though there’s an open gap.  This gap is actually freedom.  Freedom from resentment. Freedom from overwhelm and worry.  Freedom from pain.  Having this freedom does not feel natural and the longer we’ve been in a state, the more we gravitate back to it.  After getting unstuck, it’s time for us to select and begin using new tools.  These tools should aid to fill the recently acquired space with something that serves us and fortifies the change we’ve created.  Many times these tools are simple things we may have known at one point but find ourselves a little rusty from lack of use.  For some, these are tools that we’ve never thought we deserved.  For the first time we love ourselves enough to feel worthy enough to have and use them.

The goal has never been to have a stagnant client list, but rather to nurture independence and serve many.  By the time we’ve moved into the transition stage; clients are reporting fewer problems, identifying solutions independently, and are able to talk about the difference in how they were vs how they are today with self-praise.  They accept that this is their journey and that things actually couldn’t have turned out any other way for them.  If things could’ve been different, they would’ve.  To be able to accept the past as what it needed to be to bring us to the possibility of making life in this moment what we want it to be, is a very powerful tool.

Whether you have someone to help you get unstuck or not, even taking the time to read this should tell you something.  There’s a part of you that feels stuck, so, feel it, grieve it, write it down.  Reread what you’ve written and brainstorm (without judging any of the ideas) what you could do about it.  Pick an action you believe you can follow through with and begin.  It may feel like you are alone in this, but when you let the right people see that you are willing to work at making a change, people have a way of showing up and helping us get unstuck.