Dear Helen,
How can I figure out what's hanging me up from moving forward? How do I know if it's fear talking, or if I'm hesitating because I'm truly not ready/it isn't actually the right time to pursue the thing?
Thank you!
Stuck Here
Dear Stuck Here,
I promise I'm not being snarky, but I have to ask: Does it matter?
Does it really matter if you're feeling afraid versus the timing isn't right?
Don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you're coming from with this question. It's a distinction I know many of us puzzle over when we find that we're not moving forward in the way that we think we ought to. (Let's put a pin in the whole concept of "moving forward" and come back to that in a minute, because—big surprise—I have a lot to say about that, too.)
But I'm just wondering: How would it help you to know one way or the other? What would you do next, if you knew 🔮 FOR SURE 🔮 that you were experiencing fear, or, on the other hand, that it really isn't the right time to pursue this thing?
I suspect you're asking this because you want to know if this is a 'you' problem (something you need to get over or solve for in some way) or if it's merely a timing thing or circumstance (something you might see as being more unchangeable and, therefore, maybe a more legitimate reason for not making progress).
Minds do this. I've said it before: They're black-and-white thinkers with strong opinions, and they tend to compile pretty compelling evidence to support whatever their current belief system is. So, it's not at all surprising that your mind wants to know, definitively, if it's your fault you're not moving forward (as though it could be) or if it's truly out of your control. Your mind wants to know if you should push through this (whatever 'this' is) or hang back.
So binary!
It believes there's a right answer to this question you posed, a trustworthy way of discerning what should happen next, and it's on you to figure it out.
I'm pointing all this out because I've found that it's helpful to start to notice where our minds jump in and try to run the show for us in ways that aren't entirely or even mostly helpful.
Your mind thinks you should be pursuing this thing, and because you're not, your mind is saying there's a problem. And then your mind is really bearing down on this so-called problem and wanting to fully understand it in an objective way, as though it wasn't the one to create it in the first place and as though objectivity exists in this situation.
It's kind of bonkers when you think about it, right?
Okay, now for the second part of my answer, which, of course, involves posing another question to you: How do you know you're hung up from moving forward?
Really think about that for a moment.
How do you know?
How do you know this isn't supposed to be the way forward—with you not doing the thing, regardless of the reason?
From what I can tell, nothing ever gets hung up. It's impossible. Things keep unfolding, life keeps on going, and change keeps happening.
'Forward' is a funny way of describing the direction, because it implies there could be a 'backward' or a 'standing still'—and when I really look at these concepts, I see that they're exactly that. Concepts. They don't seem to exist outside of a mind. Nothing but a mind could determine that the direction a pursuit is going is backward. Or that a pursuit is somehow hung up, frozen in place, not advancing. Can you see how there's no objective truth there? It's all mind-created.
But I get that, societally, we often think of the unfolding of things as 'making progress' or as 'forward movement' because that's what it feels like—or, more probably, what we want it to feel like to move through life.
It sounds like you're simply not doing a thing that you expect yourself to do, want yourself to do (or think you want yourself to do), or believe you should be doing.
You're not doing it, who knows why, and then your mind is coming in with A Lot To Say About It.
Of course it is. This is what minds do.
Minds are meaning-making machines. It's their whole job to generate the stuff, and the meaning they make can be total nonsense.
So, what if nothing is wrong here? What if it isn't on you to figure out if or when you should be going after this pursuit? What if that's just a giant misunderstanding?
Try on these questions and see what you see.
I hope this helps!
Love,
Helen