How being stuck pushed me to follow my passion

Have there been times in your life when you felt stuck or hit a wall where you felt you could not go further? I’ve personally been stuck many times and one in particular was where I was physically and mentally stuck after an accident that broke my tail bone, sacrum and pelvis. It left me immobilised and bed-ridden.

As I lay in bed feeling frustrated and heIpless, I used four steps from the Breakthrough Coaching system to get myself unstuck, which culminated in the realisation that “it was time to get on with the life I had been dreaming off, rather than being stuck with the one I was waiting for.”

I have outlined the exact same four steps below that I used to pull myself out of hopelessness to hopefulness, which then propelled me to leave my highly paid corporate job and follow my purpose with passion and drive:

1. Acceptance and allowance of being stuck to feel at ease

Here is the first step to dealing with feeling stuck – just remain stuck! When you’re in this stage, the best thing to do is to allow yourself to become fully present to being stuck and welcome all the associated feeling with acceptance and love . This was what I did as I lay in bed, I allowed myself to feel the frustration of not being able to move and the helplessness of feeling inadequate. I allowed each emotion to be felt fully and innocently. The more I explored, I realised these emotions were related to the frustrations I had about my life and the dreams that I had not yet fulfilled. I felt that I was not following my purpose and had lost my passion for life.

So the accident not only amplified being physically trapped, it also magnified how I had locked my dreams away and was not living the life I had dreamt of. Accepting and allowing these feelings and thoughts helped me to relax and feel more at ease with myself and my situation which gave me choice to either stay stuck or get unstuck.

2. Identify and clear what is preventing you from getting unstuck

In many cases what can underlying a feeling of being stuck are natural fears and insecurities. It’s like you can sense there is a world of opportunities on the outside and yet somehow the fears keep you stuck. The fear is almost like a comfort blanket, keeping us safe and secure. This is exactly how I felt about wanting to follow my passion of starting my own business in the personal development field and yet being held back by my own fears and insecurities. I was terrified that I would not have enough money to pay the bills and the monthly mortgage. The thought of not having a secure monthly income would fill me with dread. However, when I opened up and cleared these fears and thoughts I was easily able to move towards the idea of leaving my job and towards fulfilling my passion.

3. Find the ‘benefits’ of being stuck and move towards what you want

There can be hidden benefits to being stuck. These are known as secondary gains. In my case the hidden benefit of me not wanting to leave my job and follow my passion was a belief that I might fail and I would have failed in the eyes of my family and these limiting thoughts kept me paralysed from moving forward in life. Once the secondary gain was cleared I was able to move towards what I really wanted.

Another case where discovering the secondary gain has been transformational, was with Zaunty Gupta. “After attending Breakthrough Coaching with NLP, I came to realise my patterns that keep me stuck. I was finally motivated to embark on a health program and shed 15 kg in weight with healthy eating, good nutritional supplements and exercise. I am now a health & life coach, and I help others to achieve the same in their lives.”

This exercise also unlocked the hidden gain for one of my clients who was a chain smoker. She realised if she gave up smoking, she would no longer be able to participate in key discussions in the smoking room with her boss and colleagues, where important decisions were made. Thus, she felt she needed to continue to smoking or else she might lose out on something. I recall working with so many different clients who came to me with serious illnesses and as we explored their secondary gains, many times it was uncovered a common benefit to remaining sick was the attention and care of their family members.

Here’s a common one amongst many people- a person wants to be rich, but remains poor because they believe that rich people are arrogant; thus they are scared that by having more money, they too will become arrogant like other rich people. By uncovering the benefits of being stuck and the benefits of being unstuck, you are able to have choice to decide if you really want to move towards what you thought you originally wanted; or perhaps your goal has changed, and you’re now clear you want something completely different from what you originally thought of.

4. To just get on with it

So after I had accepted being stuck, cleared the underlying fears as well as secondary benefits and realised my desire to follow my passion was greater than the benefits of staying stuck, I just got unstuck. I had a compelling future that I wanted to move towards and was willing to do whatever it took to live my purpose with passion. I took the leap of faith, followed my intuition and went full steam ahead to living my purpose with passion and drive.

In closing, the four steps to getting unstuck and following your passion and purpose are as follows: (1) Accept that you feel stuck, (2) Clear the underlying fears that keep you stuck, (3) Eliminate the hidden benefits to being stuck, and (4) To take the leap of faith and get on with it. If you wish to learn these skills where you can not only use them on yourselves as well as make a difference to the lives of others so that they may create the life they want, then I recommend Breakthrough Coaching with NLP in either Mumbai, Delhi or Bali (just announced, September 3-9th).

Dr Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD)

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About the Author

Dr Rangana Rupavi Choudhuri (PhD) is a dynamic international speaker and trainer. She loves being able to share alternate therapy and coaching skills that enable real and rapid transformations. With a PhD in Cancer Research and her background in running a multi-billion dollar international business, she is currently the Founder of Vitality Living College.
Learn more about Vitality Living College: http://vitalitylivingcollege.info/about-us/

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