Stuck And Feeling Helpless? Try These Three Steps

Who hasn’t felt stuck and helpless? The question is what to do about it.

I would like to offer three steps for getting moving again. Interested? Take a look.

Step 1 - Define the Problem:  You are feeling stuck because you seem to be between a “rock and a hard place.” This is where you must choose between two options that are both unacceptable to you. So, you go back and forth, back and forth, in conflict, stuck, feeling helpless because it seems that whatever choice you make will cause you loss or pain. Ever been there? [1]

Alice, who has a critical and emotionally abusive husband, is between a “rock and a hard place.” She’s in a terrible doublebind. Back and forth she goes between, If I leave him I won’t be able to support myself and the family will be reject me. But, if I stay here with him, I know, all the stress is really hurting me physically and emotionally. It takes courage and honesty to clearly define a double bind.

Step 2 – Focus on Your Negative Emotions about this Situation and Let Go of Them.[2]

Alice has a variety pack of emotions. She is enraged! But, at the same time, she is broken-hearted. She hates the way her husband of many years treats her and sometimes she hates him, too. But she still loves him and wants what’s best for him. She’s afraid that if she leaves him, she will never find a way to get him to love her and that she will have to live without him the rest of her life.

 Step 3 -  Shift Your Focus to Father God. Draw on His Life-Power-Energy as You Trust and Obey.

Alice has to shift her focus away from her husband and her problem to focus on God[3] and draw on his life-power-energy. When you do this, you stop pouring your life into the negative of the double-bind and start moving toward some acceptable resolution of the problem[4]

[1] James 1: 7, 8 For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.

[2] This is not a one-shot deal. You will have to release those negative emotions again, and again, and again. That, however, will be good for your body and mind, and certainly much better than swinging back   and forth, helpless, between the two painful options of your double-bind.

[3] Proverbs 3:4-6   Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

4  Matthew 6: 22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single (focused on God), thy whole body shall be full of light.

If you need some help defining your negative emotions and some tools to let go of them, you may want to look in my book Become the Person You Were Meant to Be, Chapter 9 on emotions. Also, Chapter 10 in the book focuses on the mind. In this Chapter, this blog’s three-step process called “Challenge the Conflict,” is described in greater detail. I pray the best for you.  Let me hear from you. You can contact me on my website www.choicecube.com.     Warmly, Dr. Beth