Understanding Your Stuck Makes Way for What Now

Your stuck moments keep you from living your abundant life. They lock you into the past instead of fueling you for the next step.

#QuoteoftheDay

It’s a simple truth, but part of stuck comes from making it complicated. I have to go. And the only way to go is to get past the past.

The Past Sets Hooks

“You’re a liar!”

The voice yelling at me through the phone had never met me. The voice didn’t explain what I was lying about or why he was so mad at me, but the voice definitely was confident in the assessment.

I didn’t know the person from Adam’s housecat. And yet, the words crushed me. With tears rolling down my face, I went searching for what I had done wrong.

And then I heard the little voice in my head laughing, “See, you’re a liar and a cheat.” I realized that was the very words the lawyer repeated for three days when my husband and I sat in a courtroom trying to get our insurance company to do what it promised in our policy.

Three days of being told I was a liar and a cheat left me wondering if I was a liar and a cheat. I thought I had overcome that attack, but when the voice on the other end of the phone yelled at me, I realized the encounter with the courtroom had set hooks of hurt. When the voice barraged me, the words were able to lock on to those hooks.

The hurt from the past gave a landing point for the attack of the present.

For the record, I am not a liar. And if you promise not to tell my husband, I’ll admit there have been times when I was wrong, but I didn’t lie. When my mistake was pointed out, I corrected it – most often with an apology attached.

Had the voice asked me anything, I would have been open and forthcoming. Instead, the words triggered my past and I was left wondering if I should even bother taking another step.

Hooks of the past will do that to you. They tether you to the ground and restrict your ability to go, grow, shift, and change. If you are going to break free, you have to deal with the past not dwell in it.

Dealing With the Past to Create the Future

The past is real, but it’s not in charge. No matter what I did or what I didn’t do, what lies behind doesn’t control what lies ahead. When I let the hooks of the past stay in place, I struggle to shake the past and the weight to give up grows greater. When I learn from the past while facing forward, the past can’t hold on.

Recognize the hurt.

When you name the hurt, you gain the roots for healing.

Learn from the experience.

Whether it was a mistake you made or an attack from someone or something outside, there is a lesson to gain.

Release the past.

Once you learn from it, LET IT GO. Rehashing the past will not change it.

Hurts happen. As long as I hold on to my past and stay grounded in that past, I will be held down by the hurts.

“Most people don’t know your story. They have no idea what you’ve been through.” I had a friend tell me that the other day.

Ironically, I had told someone else the same thing just a few days before, but about his life. I had told him that his story needed to be told because there was a heart that needed to hear it.

But I don’t like to tell my story, or I didn’t like telling it. I didn’t want to rehash the past because it wouldn’t help. I had learned. I had let go. I didn’t want to relive it.

Hurts happen. Retelling the hurt, fuels the hurt, and makes it impossible to (or at least more difficult) to move on.

I realized recently that it’s only the reality when the hurts have set hooks. If I’m truly free, then the hurts of the past have no more hold. When I can tell the story without the hurts having their way, THEN (and only then) I have let it go.

We have to get through the hurts of the past to move forward into our possibility future.

No Longer Stuck in the Past

Being called a liar will through cold water on the bravest heart. If there are hooks for the hurt to hold to, you may begin to question if the hurt is your truth.

Or I did.

And then I dried my tears, reached out to a friend and talked through the hurt. When all was said and done, I had to find a way to get unstuck.

When we purchased our land where we put our home, it was under water. Beavers had spent years building dames to block small streams that ran from natural springs. We had to put on chest waders and walk into the dammed up water in order to tear down the dams to dry up the land.

That seems simple enough. It was most of the time. But the stream areas had built up so much silt that they were supper grabby and if you stepped wrong that bottom mud would hold you tight.

I had the added benefit of waders just a size too big. I would keep my tennis shoes on to try to make them fit better.

One day, the mud and the tennis shoes seemed to conspire. The mud grabbed my foot, and instead of wiggling out of the mud, my foot wiggled out of the tennis shoe leaving me balancing on one foot in two footed waders in the middle of a spring.

Honestly, now that I think back to that day, I can see how my current situation feels a lot like that day in the mud. Nothing fits and everything seems to be going against me.

I eventually got free and hobbled my way over to dry land. But I had to be patient and persistent and willing to take a dip if it came to it.

Getting stuck in the past can feel a like being stuck in that mud. You are alone, unbalanced, and out in the middle of the muck.

But the good news is that if you are patient and determined, you will work your way back to dry land. The little bits will create your path to your next step – your NOW WHAT!

“The period of difficulty you’re in right now is not there forever.” – Christine Caine

God wants us to remember what He did for us, but to forget the past events and don’t get stuck in the past. God tells the people not to remember the things of old (Isaiah 43).

“God is not bound by a box called the past.” – Christine Caine

God’s promises are future-focused, but we get so fixated on the past that we can’t walk in our future.

Past successes.

Past failures.

Past missed opportunities.

Past wrong turns.

Past circumstances.

We need to release the past because they were only moments we were meant to PASS through!

God doesn’t do things the same way every time which is why we can’t put God in a box. We waste a LOT of time and energy and resources trying to put Him there. When you come to a place of understanding your stuck, you break those blocks of the past and free yourself to live your ABUNDANT LIFE with focused flexibility and intentional little bits.

Does something have you stuck in the muck of the past?

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