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"Here I am... again." ~ How the Pain of Being Stuck is Actually Your Power

“Here I am… again.”

This was my (defeating) thought this past Sunday as I moved into the FIFTH place I’ve lived since arriving in MA less than 3 years ago.

The familiar lug of heavy boxes, endless bags, HUGE plastic bins, and the bits and bobbles we seem to take with us everywhere we go, even though we don’t really need them.  

There I was...again...back and forth between huffing & puffing from going up and down the stairs, the sighs of overwhelm, silently cursing as I bump an elbow or a knee on a corner; and some tears.  These tears were partly out of frustration, partly from being alone, and mostly from the pain of thinking, “Here I am, again”.

Let’s take a quick step back…   

For those of you that don’t know, I moved to MA from TX in March of 2016 to create a life that I imagined to be PERFECT!  After living in TX for 36 years at this point, this was an adventure of a lifetime… snow, co-owning a business, the colors of a real fall season, true love, and time absolute freedom!  Well, perhaps as many things with this level of expectation do, it didn’t quite turnout the way I had envisioned it to, hence the fifth move. 

For my cross-country move, I sold my car, I sold my furniture, quit a 6-figure job, and kept only the things that “spark joy”, as Marie Kondo would say; and I’ve been moving these things around since then. Thankfully, it isn’t much so while the moves have been many, they’ve been relatively easy to do.  

Back to the story...

So, Sunday night, after my things were all moved in and my heart rate had finally returned to normal, I sat there in my new room, looked around, started to unpack, and cried.  At first, it was the same kind of tears I mentioned above...pain, frustration, and defeat…

But, “the show must go on” so I continued to unpack between sniffles, checking the mirror, and wiping the tears.  Then, in the box labeled “D’s Desk Box”, I found the gratitude journal my sister, Audrey, gave me for Christmas. It’s a simple journal where you write down 3 things you are grateful for at the end of each day.  Simple but POWERFUL!!! If you’ve never done this, DO IT. It is soul-changing.

And I started reading it…  there were some laughs, some fist pumps, and then, a new set of tears that started to stream down my face…

On 1/4/19, the three things I wrote down that I was grateful for were:  

  1. My pain.
  2. My struggle.
  3. My broken heart

This new set of tears were both from the overwhelming emotion of the words I had written AND the breathtaking realization that my pain has been my power.  Wait, what Yes!

Rereading the words I had written only 10 short days ago reminded me that the frustration of starting over and over, the pain of unmet expectations, the struggle of feeling stuck, the discomfort of not knowing where I was going to live or work, and the loneliness of not having family nearby have ALL fueled my inner fire to be RESILIENT.

That’s my power:  Getting up. Again. Going for it. Again.

So, yes, physically I am “here” again; but not in my heart, my soul, or my spirit.  My mistakes have become my teachers. My weaknesses have become my reasons to keep fighting.  My pain has become my power to get unstuck.

“Being stuck” means you aren’t growing or learning or trying. Being stuck is when you go through the motions, disengaged, thinking you want to change but not doing anything to facilitate it.

Thanks to my fifth move and my new tears, I realized I’m not stuck!

Are you finding yourself feeling stuck?  Do you feel like you aren’t moving or growing, or that you’re repeating patterns despite your desire and attempts to move forward?

While it would be nice if overcoming the feeling of “being stuck” were as simple as gratitude journaling, it isn’t. Now, it helps tremendously by altering your perception in indescribable ways but, it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

To move the needle, there must be a shift, a BIG SHIFT, in seeing how the pain of our current “stuck status” IS the power we’ve been searching for.  The pain, this discomfort that we feel, is actually the awareness that we want change, that we are ready for it, and that we are brave enough to try.     

When we shift from shaming our struggles to celebrating them, we allow ourselves the freedom to CHOOSE:

How we SEE our experiences.  

How we HANDLE our experiences.

Who we BECOME from our experiences.

We always have the choice, even in pain, to create the experience we want. It is up to us to CHOOSE to believe that our pain has purpose and that it can be the necessary spark to light our inner fire!

In the words of Jim Rohn, "If you don't like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree. You have the ability to totally transform every area in your life—and it all begins with your very own power of choice."

What do YOU choose?  I’d love to hear your story.

Believing in YOU & your pain,

~ Coach D. 

“Pain nourishes courage.  You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.”  ~  Mary Tyler Moore

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