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70% of all people feel that they are stuck… And I guess, 100% of the people feel, at least occasionally, that they are stuck.
Feeling stuck is very unpleasant. I know because I know how it feels.
But being stuck is not real, unless it is something physical, and no one means that, when they say they feel stuck.
So yesterday I had a webinar with five ‘stuck’ people to ferret out what gives the feeling that they interpret as stuck.
Stuck with what? Stuck how? And what could make them feel unstuck… if anything.
The first question is relatively easy to answer: people get stuck with their opinion about things. They get stuck with their identity.
But it is not automatic to be stuck with your opinion. So why do some opinionated people, like myself don’t get stuck, while others do?
What we found is fascinating. And also infuriating.
What we found is that people who were taught that unless you can say something nice, don’t say anything. Or alternatively: whitewash what you’d say if you said what you think, and do a ‘positive thinking’ move.
Ultimately, I think, that our upbringing (not mine, thank you very much!) is to blame.
Here are a few examples:
The guy is driving in bumper to bumper traffic. He sees a car with a woman driver not allowed to merge into the stream of traffic, coming out of a parking lot.
He eventually gets to the parking lot and gracefully lets the woman out.
Counter to his expectation, he sees no gratitude in the woman’s posture and face. He sees anger. Fury. Maybe even contempt.
He is stuck there…
His attention is wholly on himself, on not having gotten the thanks and the gratitude he so desperately needs.
In the session I suggested that instead he says: What a bitch!
And the moment he said that, all the stuckedness was gone… and he was free.
We have tens, some maybe hundreds of occasions when we keep our attention on ourselves… instead of simply say what is there to say…
If you are in polite company, you may want to say it in your head… as loud as you can, as clearly as you can… Even if what you have there to say is harsh, judgmental, or is like a shout.
The moment you are able to say that, you’ll be free.
One of the words that trips people up is the word ‘wrong’.
So they cover it up with nice-nice… and get stuck with it.
The analogy I used is dog poop on the sidewalk.
Telling the truth: it’s wrong. Telling the truth: it’s disgusting, stinky, and when I can say that, I stay out of it. I don’t have to step into it.
But if I do the nice-nice dance, i get all covered with it. I entangles myself with it.
This is true about everything that you consider wrong.
- Mistake? I say f… and I am done with it.
- Said something stupid? That was really stupid… and I am done with it.
- I feel horrible? I say: I feel horrible… and I am done with it.
- You say something horrible? I’ll yell at you: that was horrible… and I am done with it.
Your identity
In your effort to be considered a nice person (your identity!!!) (ugh!) you dance around the horrible thing, and you get all entangled with it… meaning: YOU GET STUCK!
And all the King’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put you together again. But YOU can… I say.
It started with the first incident, the one we call your ‘break in belonging’ incident.
Before that one you KNEW that you were safe. You knew that you were loved.
But after the incident you didn’t know. The FREE RIDE was over, and suddenly you felt charged with punishment, threats, limitations, opinions that you couldn’t handle.
Your vocabulary was about a hundred words, and the closest thing you could say: ‘It’s not fair!’
But it didn’t set you free.
When I work with people on their original incident, none of them say the words I would say: What a bitch, or that was rape, or she was stupid, or whatever is a perfect match to the adult’s behavior. I also like ‘asshole!’
But the timid little kid, you, didn’t dare speak up. Instead you all turned the fury against yourself.
The little kid who wasn’t allowed to visit her mother on the giving birth ward, whatever that place is called, said: I don’t belong.
Or when the same kid wasn’t allowed to take a tootsie roll meant for trick or treaters, she said: I am not special.
She could have said: f… this system! and stomp. Or tell her father that he was an asshole… because, between you and me, he was. A total asshole… caring more about the trick or treaters than her beautiful daughter.
None of the people I talk to had the courage to tell their parents off… and take the inevitable wrath…
I didn’t either, by the way. Not to them.
But in my head, and to my friends in kindergarten I did.
It just so happens that the parents of my kindergarten friends prohibited them from talking to me ever again. And that continued all the way to high school…
So it is not just your parents, it is the entire society prefers lying to actually telling the truth, and taking responsibility for themselves.
My mother beat me bloody with regularity.
When I, at the instruction of Landmark Education, wrote her a letter telling her what she did, not mincing words, which is MY WAY, she wrote back a few months later, saying: ‘it’s water under the bridge’.
When she, years later, came to visit me in the USA, one evening she asked if she was a horrible parent. And she was. But, here again the influence of Landmark Education, I said, after saying: ‘yes you were’ in my head, out loud I said: you must have been the perfect mother for me, because I turned out.
Of course I lied. I hadn’t turned out. But I didn’t whitewash how she was either. She was a horrible mother, and in spite of that I managed to become a person… eventually. It took me 60 years. In some aspects, even more.
In the aspects where I didn’t tell the truth, I tried to take responsibility for what my mother said.
And try to fix it… unsuccessfully. Until I told the truth myself. And eventually overcame and now I am unstuck even from that aspect.
Humans are arrogant and pretentious.
And want you to be the same… so they can get away with murder. And unfortunately you do let them get away with murder.
But it is time to reclaim your power from this sham.
People, things, governments, situations are horrible, bad and wrong. And as long as you are trying to be nice about any of it, you are stuck.
Your niceness entangles you with it.
You get dog poop on you… lol. Not really funny.
People always wonder why I use hurtful language with clients and students… or in my articles.
Because it sets me free.
I am giving you words to use, to learn to use, and to say as frequently as they apply.
Spruce up your vocabulary and be unabashed to use it.
Being called opinionated, even be called a bitch is better than being stuck… Wouldn’t you think so?
Now, is there a fly in the ointment? Now that you know this, and say Stupid, or something like that: does that get you unstuck?
Unfortunately there is a step in between: and that is allowing. Allowing simply means: you disconnect your Self from what you allow.
Disconnect, dissociate, create distance, dissociate, disidentify yourself from what is happening. The wrong. As a speaker, as the one who calls it you do just the opposite.
When a student says: I called it wrong… she suddenly identified with it… entangled with it, and got stuck.
And therein lies the difficulty. In the separation…
It is a DNA capacity. Why? I don’t know. But people without that capacity open cannot even do it once… let alone make it a practice.
It is the same difficulty as with the ability to look at something from the side, an leave your mind behind.
I could always do it… but my students can’t.
So I suspect that it is, the ability to leave your mind, leave what was bothering you behind is a spiritual capacity.
So yesterday I turned it on for six people. And now we wait.
We wait to see if with practice and understanding they will be able to do it or no.
Of the six two can do it. And two can do it somewhat. And one cannot do it at all.
The one that cannot do it: she has a vested interest in not doing it. And if I want to be cruel, she is approaching her second recurrence of malignant tumor… no accidents.
When you insist on a certain identity: nice, considerate, diligent, whatever the f… you pretend to be, you will remain stuck, and you’ll have illnesses that kill you.
I won’t offer the activation of the capacity again until I get clear results from the test group.
So what should you get in the meantime? I don’t know… Maybe you could help me with this unstuck topic, and tell me how you are stuck?
Or tell me if you would like me to put on a webinar where I teach how to do it… how to get unstuck.
And in the meantime you can listen in to my workshop… where I clarify what is allowing to the test group.
Listen to the workshop
