If you find yourself blocked in any pursuits, the chances there are stuck emotions getting in your way.
How can you tell? When you run into that wall, see how you feel. You probably feel some unpleasant or uncomfortable feeling. Don’t try to figure out why you feel the way you feel. You don’t even need to name your feeling, whether it’s shame or sorrow or disgust. I sometimes give my feeling a voice, as in verbalize what the feeling may be saying, like “I can’t do this. I’m so sorry but I really CAN’T do this!!” (that felt like a sense of embarrassment, as in debilitating shame, in admitting that I failed at something) But other times trying to verbalize it takes the focus away from the feeling onto the story the mind is making up.
You just have to focus on the feeling. Feel the feeling like you’re holding an upset child. Don’t tell it to stop crying or screaming. Don’t rationalize or try to talk your child out of the feeling. Don’t even comfort the child, other than hold him or her. Just tell him/her that it’s OK to feel it, kick or scream if s/he needs to. There’s no need to make it more dramatic or wallowing than it needs to be, either. Just feel it the way it is.
The more intense the outburst is, the quicker it also gets done. Once it’s done, take a break, and then go back to your pursuit. If it brings up the feeling again, do the same thing. Sooner or later the feeling will stop coming up.
Congrats, you just removed the biggest obstacle in your way. Or another way to look at it is, you finally made yourself ready to succeed. You’re not success yet, but when the internal block is gone the path to execution is clear. Without removing it, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, what techniques you employ, how much resource you pour into it — you didn’t have the capacity to succeed. Removing the inner blockage is the only way to reclaim that capacity.
Life is full of twists and turns, and setbacks are nothing unusual. But how you can tell whether you’re blocked there or not depends on the level of feelings that setback elicits. If you don’t get upset by it, then whatever is in your way is not holding you back — but if you find yourself getting emotional, then now you know how to deal with it.
I’ve been working through my emotional baggages the last few weeks, and while sometimes it gets kind of intense and uncomfortable, I’ve been very encouraged by the difference. I just feel freer because I get less worked up at life. And that leads to a sense of empowerment — setbacks seem less threatening, less overwhelming, more manageable and above all, more overcome-able.
And that’s a great feeling. I hope you get to feel that, too.