By Lauren Catanese

Feeling stuck? Feeling the weight of life and all its complexities stacking up on your back like a ton of bricks? Struggles and stress weigh us down and can feel overwhelming. Instead of recognizing and dealing with the pain and fears, we ignore them because we don’t want to face them. We are afraid that we won’t have what it takes to deal with them. We feel inadequate, confused, worried that we don’t know how to handle this situation. And so we stay busy, or take misguided actions acting out of fear, Hoping that it will just go away!  We are afraid to face the tribulations we are actually meant to face in order to grow. So they stack on up. The bigger and harder the strife the further it will carry us. Our hard places are where we need to be polished. What we don’t realize is pain and heaviness is our teacher, with a big highlighter saying don’t just keep ignoring this, this is where you need to grow.

So take those bricks off your back and use them to build your new pathway forward. The bricks are your growing blocks, your stepping stones to living a life of your design.

Steps to move you forward:

1. Awareness is the first step- having the conscious thought that you feel this weight on your back, the pain, fear, whatever it is, you have to be aware that it is there before you can do anything about it.
2. Feel it- recognize it and instead of being afraid of what it may say or what it wants, or how it might derail your life; see it as a teacher as a friend. It wants you to pay attention to what it is trying to teach you. To feel it, close your eyes, and notice where in your body you are feeling it. Does it have a color? Shape? Without judgment or analysis just let the feeling happen. That’s feeling it.
3. Ask it- when you feel it, ask it, what is this about? Why is this showing up for me? What is it wanting to tell me? You will get answers, hints, visions, ideas will pop into your head. It might not come in a way you would expect, or be an answer you thought. But honor what comes.
4. Get a solution and take action- whatever comes up, honor that. This is helping you depend on and trust in yourself. Ask, what is one thing I can do towards healing this? Letting this go? What is a solution?
5. Give thanks and truck on- once you feel it, and honor it, notice how you feel. Do you feel lighter, empowered? Did you get some action steps or clarity? If not, maybe go back in.

It might come back up for you again, and that’s ok. Repeat the steps. Shifting old beliefs and paradigms might take a few times. Make sure to give thanks to yourself for taking the time to pay attention. It takes courage to change!

*For further awareness of how to get unstuck check out “Uns*uck Yourself! The Guide to Designing a Life You Love by Samantha Buckley Hugessen . She was the inspiration in front of this article…holding a vision and helping me take my bricks and build my path forward.

The post The Bricks on Your Back, Are Just Your Stepping Stones Forward appeared first on South Walton Life | 30A News, Events and Community Information.