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3 Things That Have Kept Me Feeling "Stuck" in Life

Writer's picture: Raven JamesRaven James

Illustration of a man standing in an airport on his phone, looking at planes fly by.
Illustration by Ubaid E. Alyafizi for Unsplash+

Something is anxiety-inducing about being stuck.


And when I say "stuck", I lean towards phrases like: lost, confused, nervous, scared, etc. about what is supposed to come next in life. Or, better yet, I've also used it to describe how it feels when I see Point B over the horizon but my feet are firmly planted into Point A with no real plan on how to get to Point B.


In the morning I take some time to read a daily devotional, journal, and pray. I would like to say that I do this every single morning without fail, but I don't have a reason to lie. Sometimes I get wrapped up in the chaos of getting ready for the day and other times my mind is so preoccupied with other things that it slips my mind until later that night. But it's something that I enjoy doing, I find it helpful to my everyday life, and I'm always working to stay consistent with this practice.

The thing about books, especially non-fiction books, is that they can tell you things about yourself that you're not always ready to hear from the people around you. It's easy to take certain things personally when another person says it, but you can't really take what the book says about you personally because--well--it's a book. It was made so that hundreds and thousands of people can find use for it. It's not like it's a direct attack on you (even if it does feel that way).

This is how I've been feeling about my daily devotionals as of late. It seems like, for a straight week, I was being attacked. However, I want to note that this isn't a bad thing. As I said: books tell you things about yourself, and we all need to be told about ourselves every so often. For me, I believe it to be God's way of giving me the guidance and discernment that I'm always asking Him for. I wanted to share some things that I've been reading that tie a lot into why I've been feeling "stuck", and I hope maybe it can help you too.


Avoiding Big Risks


It feels like common sense, doesn't it? To get big changes we need to be willing to take big risks. To get things we've never had, we have to be willing to do things we've never done.

I know I'm not the only one who understands that change can be scary; it can be downright terrifying at times. This intense fear of change (or fear of the unknown) can cause us to stay planted where we are even when we know deep down we have to move forward. Within his devotional series "Live in Grace, Walk in Love", Bob Goff references Luke 5:4 where Jesus said to Simon "Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch".


A photo of a sailboat out on a water, with a sunrise in the background.
Photo by Fab Lentz for Unsplash

How can we interpret this? It's exactly as it sounds. You can't expect to catch enough fish if you're dedicated to staying in shallow water. But when you venture out into the deeper water, water in which you can't see the bottom, you are much more likely to catch enough fish (plus more). The devotional asks us: what if we went all in with our own life? What would it look like if we took more vulnerable steps?

A vulnerable step, in this case, is just a step forward that comes with a bit of uncertainty. The scariest thing about deep water is that we can't see what's in it. We can't wade, we can't see the ground and we most definitely can't touch the ground with our feet. It requires us to swim or sail knowing that what we need is going to be across that water. In my case, a more vulnerable step would include reevaluating my career goals and taking action now instead of later to go toward what I want to do. But that can also mean risking job security during a time in which my household has plenty of expenses that call for a dual-income. It could also mean learning some new things, making time to study for certification, or having a disruption of plans I've already set up (my husband will tell you, I hate when plans get disrupted no matter how big or small they are).

The next time you are stuck, think about the last time you've made a much-needed big change. If you can't remember the last time you did it, it could be time to make another one.


Staying Stuck to Labels


In another devotional, Goff references John 15:15 before telling a brief anecdote about childhood nicknames, typically ones that label us somehow. When we're small we tend to latch on to labels, no matter how bad they are. As someone who was a victim of bullying for most of my elementary and middle school years, there are still words in the back of my head that I remember even though I'm now in my 30s.

Sometimes we inadvertently label each other, and ourselves, just to make sense of the world. We can make our world easier to digest and understand when we put things in their respective little "boxes". Unfortunately, some of us spend a huge chunk of our lives trying to climb out of these boxes and remove the labels.


Blank "Hello My Name Is" name tags sit on a counter alongside Black markers.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

These labels, at least for me, tend to creep up in the most sneaky ways. This week I did something a little foolish. I was expecting a package that got delivered to a parcel locker. People who live in certain communities know but, essentially, the parcel locker is attached to a "cluster box" of mailboxes where each townhouse in the community can access their mail with a key to a specific box. Now, unbeknownst to me, the little key that had a keychain that said "if found, insert into an outgoing mailbox" was supposed to be used for the parcel locker for me to get my package (that I highly doubt was too big to fit in our mailbox, but whatever). For whatever reason, I had it in my mind: "Oh, the USPS man must have accidentally stuck this key in here, let me just put it back in the outgoing mailslot".

Hours later I get a notification saying that my package was "delivered". This was at nearly 3 pm, but the USPS notification said it was delivered into the parcel locker at noon. It was only then that I put those two pieces of information together. And when I was explaining the situation to my husband, I casually used the phrase "I was dumb today". And he immediately turned around and said: "I really wish you wouldn't say stuff like that. You're not dumb, you made a mistake".

When he said that, I was immediately reminded of something a good friend asked me: Is what you say about yourself the same thing that God says about you? Even now, I have to constantly remind myself that I'm not a lot of those negative labels. As a kid, for the most part, I did really well in school. However, math had been a struggle point for me since maybe 3rd or 4th grade. I just didn't quite have a knack for it. One of the easiest ways to hurt me back then was to call me "stupid", because that's how I always felt when faced with a math problem. Fast forward to adulthood and I was using that same insult on myself, unprompted. Sometimes, in order to protect ourselves, we lean on self-deprecating humor so that we can beat other people to the punch. We move thinking that if we acknowledge this flaw in ourselves first, we can take the sting out of someone else saying it.

This isn't the only negative label I've latched on to. I found that I also believed myself to be boring, to be unathletic, and to have an annoying grating voice. I'm still working on that last one (I still don't care to hear the sound of my own voice), but over time I've realized that I'm not just interesting, I can be downright hilarious. And while I wouldn't call myself an athlete, I've been able to work on my stamina and my cardio health in ways I couldn't have imagined as a teenager.

Labeling ourselves in this way will inevitably keep us stuck where we are. It's an easy way for us to validate staying where we are instead of moving forward like we want to. If you convince yourself that no one wants to listen to you, then of course you won't start a podcast. If you convince yourself that no one cares about what you have to say, then of course you won't write a book or start a blog. If you convince yourself that you're too old, too "stupid", too this, too that--you set yourself up to stay stuck. When we remove labels from ourselves and stop leaning into what people think we are, we make room for our real selves to thrive.


Waiting vs. Stalling


The last thing that really got to me referenced 1 Corinthians 11:1. Goff goes on to say something that could be considered controversial, but I still believe it to be important to consider. Christians already know about this phrase, but for my Readers who don't, I will briefly explain. The phrase is the idea of "waiting on God". "Oh, I'm just waiting on God before making any moves". Before proceeding with a choice, one prays and waits for God to provide guidance on the matter. Obviously, this is not a bad thing at all. It shows that we put our trust in Him and that He will make it known the best choice.

However, sometimes we will say that we're waiting on God when, in actuality, we're just stalling on the next move. "When we say we're waiting on God, He's often waiting on us". This hit me pretty hard, because there have been times when I've felt a "pull" to do something but instead of doing it, I just keep praying about it and hoping for something that tells me that this is for sure from God. But what I didn't realize is that the "pull" was, in fact, the sign I was looking for.


A woman waits at a bus stop while glancing at her wristwatch.
Photo by Johen Redman on Unsplash

This stalling, at least for me, is more so about fear than anything (ironic, I know). I was afraid of making the wrong choice about something and somehow being "punished" for making that decision because I didn't wait long enough, didn't pray enough, didn't read the Bible enough, etc.

For this last one, it does not apply to everyone. It definitely will take some prayer and discernment to determine whether or not you have fallen susceptible to using "waiting on God" as an excuse to stall and not move forward even when you should. Be careful that you are not using God's grace as an excuse to stay where you shouldn't instead of moving forward into the deep water.


Some Thoughts


As I said before, these are things that I've realized have had me feeling stuck for years. For you, it could be something completely different. If you've been feeling stuck and aimless, there's a big chance it could be one of the reasons listed above. I hope that, if you haven't already, you can sit and have a hard conversation with yourself about this. Feeling stuck and aimless like this can be lonely, but it certainly doesn't have to be. We all go through it and we all grow through it.


Thanks for reading,


--Raven

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