I had been feeling stuck for months and I had done what I could to figure things out.

But still, I was stuck.

I knew that somehow getting out of this stuck place was an internal job, although it looked like I just had to figure out the right actions to take to make it all work again.

I had tried strategizing my way out of the bad situation, and sometimes I had numbed out the fear with TV when it got too big to handle.

But what I hadn’t really done was admit to myself how much it sucked and feel the suckiness.

Of course, I had written about the suckiness in lengthy terms in my journal entries, but I had never allowed myself to really feel it.

I thought I could skip this step.

Because had I not courageously sat down to figure out what was going on, and more than once? And God, that problem was just getting old. Did I really need to wallow in it again?

Oh yeah, I did.

I knew I hadn’t really looked at how scared I was, how much I was suffering. And I certainly hadn’t made room to feel it.

There was a reason I had tucked it away neatly in the broom cabinet of my subconscious after all.

I was scared of what would happen when I’d take a look at my fear.

But when things didn’t get better, I finally, finally gave myself permission to admit how much this sucked. And I felt it.

I wrote it all out, how much I hated being in this situation, how much it was keeping me up at night and how disappointed I was in myself for getting myself into this mess in the first place.

I wrote it all out. And it actually didn’t take too long – sometimes a few sharp words are all you need to look yourself in the eye and stop avoiding the truth.

That’s when that feeling of lightness I had been yearning for finally settled in, slowly but surely. It wasn’t a lightning flash of bigness, just a subtle feeling.

I still didn’t have the answers to how I was going to get out of this. But I was finally being honest with myself and it felt so good.

If you have been feeling stuck in a tricky situation or have carried around a certain discontentment for a while, I invite you to take out your journal and look the suckiness in the eye. It may feel like the worst thing to do, but dragging the bad feelings out into the open is usually a good idea even if it’s counter-intuitive.

But hey, if you’re reading this and you’re all like “well, of course, you need to look at your fears, you can’t be avoiding stuff. Doing that is dumb, so why would I do that. I don’t because I’m not stupid”.

You’re right.

The problem is it’s not like our inner life is neatly labeled with things like “fearful stuff that you’re not looking at because you’re afraid of what will come of it”. Since there are no labels, we usually don’t see that we’ve been avoiding stuff until we get ourselves out of the sucky situation.

This is an invitation to look at it now.

If you’re stuck, what have you not looked at? Have you made an effort to feel all the feelings you have about the sucky situation?

Okay, now be honest.

Then get out your journal or do what you have to do to look yourself in the eye and admit that it sucks.

Because that would be pretty smart. And I know you’re a smart one.

// I wrote about something similar a while back. If you’re feeling it, check out “I’m fine, really” Stop bullshitting yourself, please.  //