The Stories That Feel Real But Keep Us Feeling Stuck | Just Be You | Amber Hawken | Mindfulness Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

How many people do you hear complaining about feeling stuck in major areas of their life while doing jack shit to change them? We feel powerless when we live in an inauthentic manner, but we’re unsure about what to do with it. Our inauthentic layers and habits have been there so long that escaping hundreds of times a day becomes your reality and your consolation all at once. The truth is that we were never powerless; we have just been giving away our power by believing these three following things:

• We are fine.
• We are powerless
• We have no choice.

The addictive behaviours that we indulge in like overeating, over liking, over tinkering, over posting, over-working, over earning, over shopping, and over-exercising are commonly considered quite normal, and thus, we fall ignorant to our suffering. We don’t know what we don’t know, until we know it all too well, of course. We aren’t aware of their self-imposed suffering until it hits the toxic stage and shows up and only then do we pay attention and vainly fall into the loop of treating the symptom.

We chase our fear and our pain instead of chasing the cause, and we end up in a never-ending loop called the human condition, and we have no idea why the pain never goes away.

“It is a natural human instinct to turn our fears into symbols and destroy the symbols, in the hope that it will destroy the fear. It is a logic that keeps recurring throughout human history, from the Crusades to the witch hunts to the present day.”

―Johann Hari, Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

Feeling insecure must be caused by my body shape; I better go on a diet.

Feeling unlovable must be because of my boob size; I better get implants.

Feeling lonely must be because I am not in a relationship; I better settle for whatever I can get or claim I am not “made” for relationships and create the exact reality I fear most.

Feeling unworthy so I better tell everyone what they are doing wrong with their lives and how to fix it.  

Feeling insignificant so I better whine about my problems on Facebook and create a conversation about how terrible my life is.

Feeling unsuccessful so I better get a loan that I can’t afford to match the outfit that’s more expensive than my monthly grocery bill to make sure people see me as someone who has made it.

We need to stop treating the symptoms of feeling stuck and pull the problem out by the root. We need to form a connection with who we are, rather than waste a lifetime building up the projection of who we are not.

We constantly chase symptoms and drive the knife of fear into our soul, cutting the threads between our heart and mind, initiating fear, and driving our impulse to escape discomfort. Slowly but surely, we are breeding ourselves to be addicts to these external numbing agents available to us at every turn. It’s so obvious, but we remain so blind. How can we be confused as to why anxiety, depression, drug abuse, prescription medication, obesity, crime rates, and suicide are on the rise when we live in a world that encourages and rewards us to walk around wearing a mask that suffocates our life force of authentic living?

I do think we know. We just don’t know what to do. So, start with you. Stop trying to save the effing world, and start saving you. That is saving the world. When you place a candle that is struggling to stay alight against another stronger flame, it can burn more brightly even when separated. Therefore, authenticity is your primary purpose, and everything else is secondary. Just being you is the point of life. You must get that. Letting go of your self-perception that is conducted by an orchestra of fear and conditioning inside your mind is what will make you resilient and fulfilled.

We don’t even realise that we are screwing ourselves over. Most people prefer to remain ignorant and keep their identity, addictions, problems, and obsession close because they feel safe, not wanting to let go, and even defending their agenda.

But eventually at some point, we get sick of our bullshit and realise that we simply aren’t satisfied with the short-term fix; when we’ve sucked our soul dry from insidious stimulation, we begin to look for alternatives. At some point, we realise that an authentic and fulfilling life takes work, humility, patience, presence, responsibility, and consistency. These are so lacking in today’s world where everything is available right here, right now. We have forgotten the need for discomfort in the journey to change. We delegate life, try to skip ahead and get anywhere else but right where we are. We feel entitled, yet we aren’t willing to face the music that takes us into the depths of what we are running from and into freedom.