The Art of Becoming Unstuck
What makes it so hard for us to let things go? We hang on to things, situations, jobs, beliefs, relationships and points of view that no longer serve us, often for years, and long after they have happened. What’s more, they often keep us stuck in frustration and pain and in the status quo, whether a happy or unhappy one. So what’s it going to take to be able to let go effectively and consciously with ease?
In this article, I would like to share some of the strategies I use daily that helped me to successfully let go of what was keeping me stuck and to keep me moving forward in a way that works for me.
1. Taking ownership
The most important and perhaps hardest step in this process, in my experience, is to first acknowledge that we are feeling stuck and that our behaviours up until this moment, have given us the results we find. This is about taking ownership! When we do not accept responsibility for what is showing up in our life, in my experience, we are denying our divine nature and ability to co-creator with Life itself. This strips us of our personal power!
Many of us are afraid to accept responsibility, because we have not been shown a healthy version of what this can look like nor how it works. There is a very strong element of blame and shame inherent in the collective consciousness, which is keeping us stuck in feelings of shame and guilt. These emotions keep many in a state of re-action and unable to let go. To stop this knee jerking, it’s going to take each of us to take ownership of what is going on in our lives and be honest about the way things are. It is what it is!
Learn to be okay with things as they are, because until we do, we are simply resisting and creating more of the same old same. This can lead to feelings of frustration, disillusion, stress, lack of confidence, desperation or simply playing it safe, not wanting to rock the boat, not asking for bigger and better and to stop growing.
Life is all about growth! It’s about expansion and when we are stuck it hurts and eventually we can experience disease. When we let go of our stuckness and take ownership of our choices, we can expand and respond. Ownership makes co-creation fun!
2. Flip the emotion
What makes a part of the human experience so wonderful I believe, is our ability to feel emotion plus the capacity to be aware of what it is we are experiencing. The reason many of us stay stuck however, is this very aspect.
On the surface, emotions can seem straightforward. Humans, however, are extremely complex in their emotional makeup because there are layers and triggers of all kinds involved. From very young, we are indoctrinated about what each emotion means, we are taught when and how they are appropriate or not. The scenarios are set and we are expected to play along and our part. And for thousands of years, many did. Those that dared to step outside the scenario were silenced in numerous ways.
These memories are still ingrained within the collective consciousness. Nevertheless, this is changing as more and more of us are speaking up and out. We are no longer accepting to live our lives according to someone else’s outline and definition. This requires taking ownership – remember in point 1 – of one’s emotional states and understanding them.
In my own experience and from working with many clients to support them from pain to resolution, it is often the emotional connections and associations that keep us stuck and make letting go such a challenging hurdle. A study by Hockenbury, conducted in 2007, highlighted the structure of an emotion and offers insight into the dynamics of our emotions.
Each emotion is a complex psychological state that is comprised of three distinct components:
1. A subjective experience
2. A physiological response
3. A behavioural or expressive response.
Understanding these components is important, especially when it comes to changing any emotion and creating a new emotional definition and association.
To flip an emotion requires effectively addressing each component. If one is missed, this interrupts the process of letting go and keeps us stuck in the same behavioural patterns, until we get the message. Our emotions are messengers and it is our individual responsibility to learn to understand them fully and then to change direction.
3. Question Everything
Many of us become stuck when it comes to letting go, because we believe that our beliefs are true. And so to let go feels like a deep loss of part of our truth. This can be softened however by looking at beliefs as habits and thoughts that we think often. And so they become interchangeable choices that we can make in different contexts and circumstances, offering us a wonderful scope of expansion and flexibility, rather than rigidity and stagnation.
A tool that I have found wonderfully empowering when it comes to letting go, is to question everything. Feeling stuck comes from a perspective of very little movement, no way out and lack of opportunity. When used correctly and responsibly, questions have the ability to open up the playing field. This is one of the reasons I consider using questioning as a superpower!
Calibrated questions are an invitation to grow and be aware of different options and perspectives. It’s very difficult to remain stuck in the face of questions as they are extremely effective in rendering our beliefs and emotions transparent and this can often result in feelings of discomfort and even feeling threatened. This is where taking ownership and learning to understand and flip our emotions takes on a new level of importance and impacts our ‘ability to respond’. It’s the turning point where we consciously choose to let go of what is keeping us stuck. Questions are also wonderful for helping us to establish what out true desires are – as long as we keep on asking and moving forward and being willing to receive something more.
What keeps us from letting go of the things that keep us stuck, are the attachments we have to the beliefs and values that glue our identity and lives together. It is often, only when we become excruciatingly uncomfortable or pained by our stuckness that we are perhaps finally ready to let go of our predefined ideas of who we are and what that looks like.
4. Conscious Breathing
As with any artistic skill, the art of letting go is a process. By taking ownership, flipping emotions and questioning everything and everywhere I may still experience being stuck, I continue to cultivate my own brand of the art of letting go and empower myself by asking ‘how easy am I willing to make this?’.
One of the most powerful and connecting resources that we ALL have access to, when letting go of what keeps us stuck, is our breath and using this consciously.
Learn how to use your breath consciously and effectively anywhere, anytime. Download my free audio DESTRESS DETOX RELAX in less than 10 minutes here -> http://eepurl.com/bgQ6fj
It has been a pleasure sharing this information with you and I trust you find it useful and effective as you cultivate your art of letting go.
Originally published at www.aspiremag.net