Are you stuck?

Grieve.

“Grief is the one pain that heals all others. It is the most important pain there is.” Henry Cloud and John Townsend, from How People Grow.

Have you ever felt like you couldn’t move forward in some area of your life? Maybe it’s in your career, with friendships, your finances, your health, or romantic relationships. If you trace it back, you got stuck somewhere and haven’t been able to move forward. What’s the deal with that?

If you got stuck early in life, you may find you react to situations that remind you of the time you got stuck. You may even react as if you were the same age as when you got stuck. Isn’t that weird to think of a middle-aged man or woman reacting as if they’re an adolescent? Not really! When you experience a hurt, a crisis, or some sort of trauma, you can get stunted in that place. You then react to similar hurts at the maturity level from the first hurt.

You’re stuck!

Whenever your feelings about a particular situation seem out of proportion to what has happened, you may actually be responding to a prior situation without realizing it.

Your spouse says something and you respond defensively. Was it really about what he or she said? Or did it bring up an old hurt that hasn’t been worked through?

Your boss asks you to do something you feel is beneath your job description. You respond as if they don’t respect you and feel rebellious. Is the boss really thinking you are not capable of more, or did you feel that way earlier in life and it still triggers you?

You can’t ever seem to get ahead financially. Is it really about the money, or might it have something to do with a parent or teacher who told you, “You’ll never amount to anything?”

You have difficulty moving forward in romantic relationships. Is the person wrong for you, or do you need to grieve a past, hurtful relationship?

I am a Board Certified Christian Life Coach. I have my own coach, Shannon Ethridge. Coaching has helped me get unstuck from so many areas in my life: fear, doubt, moving forward with my ministry, marriage issues, parenting issues, weight loss and physical health.

Shannon and I talk about grief a lot! We’re just that fun!! She meets regularly with a group of counselors and coaches to talk about life, relationships, etc. Her group is affectionately called, Shrink Rap. I’m starting my own Shrink Rap group here in Colorado. Anyway, her group realized that:

Almost every problem their clients’ face can be traced back to unresolved grief.

Are you stuck?

There’s a simple way out. Grieve.

It’s not an easy way out, but it is simple.

How do you grieve, you may ask?

Book volumes have been written on this subject, so my little blog is not going to resolve this complicated issue fully. I can offer this:

1. Write about it. Pray. Ask God to help you figure out where you got stuck and what needs to be grieved. Be courageous. Face it. Deal with it. Don’t run away. Don’t numb yourself to the pain. Don’t ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen. It happened and if it still impacts you, it’s not in the past.

2. Deal with fear. What are you afraid of? Write about it. Are you afraid it will happen again? Are you afraid you’ll never move past it? Do you fear your loved ones can’t handle it? Do you trust God to help you deal with it? You don’t have to resolve your fears, just acknowledge them.

3. Deal with anger. Were you allowed to be angry growing up? Does anger scare you? What would happen if you really allowed yourself to feel the anger that’s been buried?

4. Deal with sadness and loss. Did you cry over your early losses? Were you sent to your room if you expressed sadness? Did you learn to stuff your feelings? Write about it. Find a good friend and express your sadness to them.

“God put our tear ducts in our eyes. Grief is a relational experience, and our pain has to be seen eye to eye with another person. Someone should be looking at us when we are crying, and we should be looking at him or her. Then, we are not alone and our tears are seen and heard. Then, as Jesus tells us, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ (Matt. 5:4).” Cloud and Townsend.

5. Forgive the other person and yourself. “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes.

6. Feel the joy! Live! Move on! Get unstuck!

It’s not easy, but it is simple. If you need help getting unstuck, click here:http://www.carrieotoole.com/guidance-coaching.php

This post written by Colorado Life Coach, Carrie O’Toole.