Do You Feel Stuck?

If you have ever gotten your rubber boots stuck in a muddy garden, you will remember how hard it is to lift your boot out of the mud. Sometimes you can manage it by holding onto the top of the boot and pulling up as you lift your foot. This requires excellent balance and could result in landing bum first in the mud. Sometimes a helping hand can make all the difference. But it is also possible that the person trying to help you will end up stuck in the mud as well. Sometimes your only choice is to step out of your boot, pick it up and get muddy walking out. Once you are out of the garden you can hose yourself off. In our relationships how do we end up stuck in the mud? Perhaps we have not been watching where we were going. We may have been oblivious to the state of our relationship. We may have been taking each other for granted and sweeping problems under the rug until the lump became so big we tripped over it and cannot seem to get up. Sometimes to get unstuck in our relationship we need to balance our self. Sometimes we need a helping hand from our partner and for us to offer a helping hand to our partner. And sometimes we need to get muddy, we need to face up to our issues so that we can get past them. Just as in the garden example, to really get unstuck we need to get out of the mud. We cannot solve our stuck feelings if we keep walking in circles in the mud. We will pull our boot out, to simply put it right back in. Watch your thoughts. Are you recycling the same thoughts day after day. You cannot expect to feel differently if you continually tell yourself the same things over and over. Substitute positive thoughts about your partner and about your relationship. Do this even if those thoughts do not seem to be true right now. Search your memory for positive examples. Do something different. If your relationship is in a rough place, chances are that one or both of you has chosen to withhold love from the other. Make a different choice. Try behaving lovingly even when you do not feel loving. Behaving lovingly will affect not only your partner, it will also affect how you feel. Discipline your body and your mind. You will only get unstuck by taking action. Don’t wait until you feel like it. Get up and go for a walk. Play uplifting music. Secretly do random acts of kindness. Do something nice for your partner when you are mad at them. Choose to behave lovingly even when you do not feel loving. You alone have what it takes to get you unstuck. Instead of thinking there is no way out, I’m stuck, I have no options. Try thinking about where you want to be. Energize and hold onto that image. You will be amazed at what happens when you start to focus on where you want to go rather than on why you are stuck and cannot get there.