Fighting The Urge To Stay Stuck

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello there.

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

And today we're going to be talking about the way that I like is navigating your way around staying where you are.

I think Michael Bernard Beckwith said it that way.

And I've also heard it said,

Fighting for your right to stay miserable.

Yeah,

You've talked about that with me before.

Yeah.

Yeah,

It's big.

We all do it in a lot of ways.

I've also heard it another way,

And I don't know if I'm going to get this one right,

But I'm going to throw it out there.

It's something about being more focused on the truth and what's going on now,

And the truth of what's going on now,

Than what we want to happen in the future.

And basically,

No matter how you say it,

It all comes out the same way.

If you're,

You know,

I have a lot of conversations with people who are really bound and determined to stand in the truth of what's going on right now.

You know,

So,

Oh,

This is what's going on,

And this is the truth,

And if I deny it,

Then I'm not being honest.

And it's,

Yeah,

We have to be honest with ourselves.

Can you give an example of that?

Yeah,

I mean,

Just,

You know,

Generally,

You know,

What the conversation is today about is somebody standing in the fact,

Like,

I'm out of work right now and I don't have any money.

You know,

That's a fact in people's lives,

And that's the truth in what they're standing.

And they want to stand in that and proclaim that as their truth,

And anything other than that is denial.

And it's the,

You know,

If whatever we focus on,

We're going to perpetuate,

We're going to bring into our lives.

So that might be the truth now.

And that is a result of what's happened in the past.

But what do you want your future to look like?

You know,

So if you stay focused on proving that,

You know,

And usually there's a victim mentality to that,

It's usually not their fault,

You know,

Why they're out of work.

So it's reinforcing that victim mentality and that what they end up doing is projecting the same future on themselves as what they're standing in now.

So it's,

You know,

The more they think about it,

And the more they stomp their feet and say this is what's going on,

This is the truth,

They're actually setting it up to be the truth in the future too.

Right.

You know,

Because they're standing in that identity,

They're standing on,

Instead of looking down the road.

And it's,

You know,

Sometimes I have to get to the point with people where I'll just challenge that the fact that you need to live in the truth is a lie.

Why is the truth so important?

Like,

You know,

And I mean,

Like I said,

This is a tricky one,

Because there is a level of honesty that we need to have with ourselves and with others.

But when we're looking at our surroundings,

And our surroundings paint the picture that our life sucks,

How does that make us feel?

Right.

Sucky,

You know?

So if the reality of the present makes me feel miserable,

Then I'm not going to focus on the reality of the present,

Because I don't want to be miserable.

This reminds me of the Confucius saying,

He who thinks he can and he who thinks he can that are both usually right?

Yeah.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

You know,

There's truth to that.

It's where,

You know,

A lot of the,

And I've said this before,

A lot of the spiritual sayings and things connect with each other,

Sometimes in slightly different ways.

And it's because there's only so many spiritual truths that underlie everything.

You know,

And if I want to sit there and say,

Okay,

You know,

I can make up my own thought of what I want to stand in.

I'm gainfully employed.

That's what I want to be thinking about.

I want to be thinking about being gainfully employed.

And now I need to take some action wherever I can,

Put out some resumes,

Go knock on some doors,

Whatever I need to do,

You know,

Obviously I need to take action,

But I'm going to be focused on being gainfully employed.

And then somebody that's trying to stay miserable will be like,

Well,

You're lying to yourself.

Well,

Honestly,

I'd rather lie to myself and be happy than be honest with myself and be miserable.

Because I'm happy,

Like,

And that's my reality.

I'm either happy or I'm not happy.

And if I'm being happy and doing whatever I need to do to improve my future,

Then I'm walking even more towards that happiness in happiness.

If I'm sitting stuck in my present situation and I'm completely focused on that and how miserable I am,

Then that's where I'm staying stuck and I'm miserable while I'm there on top of it.

This sounds like a really hard sell to someone who is miserable and knows why they're miserable.

Absolutely.

This seems like an almost an impossible sell.

Well,

Nothing's impossible because it's the truth.

Like,

So if you come at it,

If it's an impossible sell when,

When people don't want to buy,

If they're bound and determined,

They're going to stay stuck and they don't give a crap who says what about what,

Then yeah,

It's a,

It's a complete impossible sell because they're bound and determined they're going to stay stuck.

But if somebody's open to experiment different ways,

I mean,

The reality of it is would you rather be happy or would you rather be right?

Most of us have heard that,

You know,

And we can choose to be happy.

That's what happiness is.

It's a choice.

It's not getting all things lined up in a row and making sure we have everything that we want.

That's not happiness.

You know,

Just ask anybody that's achieved it and happiness wasn't there.

You know,

That this,

That the world is littered with them.

You know,

Otherwise there would be nobody that was successful on the material world with drug problems,

With relationship problems.

I mean,

Those are the ones we hear the most about,

You know,

Turning to drugs,

Being married eight times,

You know,

This is if,

If success made people happy,

All that dysfunction wouldn't be happening at the successful high level.

So how do you,

How do you change that?

How do you get somebody that's not willing to buy to buy?

Yeah.

So that's not willing to buy into this that is stuck because that's the,

That's the thing like,

Yeah,

It's easy to change if you're willing to and wanting to change.

But you know,

This is about navigating being stuck.

And if you're stuck,

Then you're not necessarily always willing.

Right.

And the people,

How do you initiate that change?

How do you,

How do you,

Uh,

Yeah.

How do you sell it to somebody who won't buy?

I don't.

It's impossible.

I can't change anybody.

You know,

I can't fix anybody.

I can't change them.

I can't open them up.

It's I'm not God.

I can't do that.

And neither can anybody else on the planet.

At the end of the day,

Our lives are our own choices.

So if somebody is determined that they're not buying,

They're not buying.

And there's not a thing I can do or say that's going to change that.

You know,

I mean,

If they happen to be around me and little by little something seeps in,

Wonderful.

You know,

That's,

I mean,

That can happen.

But usually people that are completely against buying don't like being around me.

Because I truly believe in what I'm saying and it's how I live and it's what I talk about.

So it's really annoying to somebody who's not buying.

You know,

After a while,

They're just like,

I can't stand to be around them,

Which is fine.

You know,

I mean,

You know,

It happens.

I don't take it personally.

I mean,

It's just where at different places at that particular time.

So you know,

It's but the thing of it is,

Is you never know if somebody has this little pocket of openness or willingness or hope down inside.

And if all you got to do is touch that with the right word sometimes,

And they open up a little bit more,

You know,

Then you touch it again,

It opens up a little bit more.

And you know,

Then all of a sudden,

Something starts changing.

I mean,

The only the only time you can't reach somebody that doesn't want to be reached,

You just can't.

However,

Most people want to be reached on some level or another.

You know,

A lot of people do.

So what about getting stuck halfway through being reached?

What if it's somebody that wants to be reached?

And or is trying to someone that that did buy in some of the,

You know,

Does want to do that.

And then those people get stuck along the way too.

Yeah.

And I think usually,

The best thing to prove to people that this is true is their own experience.

You know,

That it's very difficult.

I probably say impossible a lot of times,

But anything's possible if you shut down hard enough.

It's near impossible to argue with your own experience.

You know,

That's why it's I usually phrase it like,

What do you have to lose?

You're miserable now.

So give it three months of real hardcore trying and effort.

And if you bust your butt for three months with everything you can,

Then at the end of that three months,

Look,

See,

See what's happened.

You know,

You got to give it a little bit of time,

But to start seeing your life change,

It doesn't take that long.

You know,

In a few months,

You can start seeing dramatic changes in your own experience.

And then you can build off of that,

You know,

But the where people,

People will do a half ass effort and then get half ass results and then kind of push them aside.

They're like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

But that could have been coincidence.

Yeah,

That could have been,

But I don't know,

You know,

And that's,

You know,

Then that's more that's a different version of navigating your way around staying stuck.

So if you really want to give this a shot,

Then give it three months,

You know,

Have somebody to talk to,

Get a life coach for a few months,

Get somebody who is living a happy spiritual life,

Or if it's a financial situation that you want to change and you just want to focus on that and not spirituality,

Go find a mentor,

Somebody to tell you what to do for three months,

Because you can't depend on yourself for three months.

That's the whole point.

Depending on yourself got you where you are,

You know,

So you need to depend on somebody else's version of reality,

Somebody else's way of looking at things,

And then do it their way for a few months.

You just obviously need to be very careful who you choose,

You know.

I mean,

They have to have something that you want,

May it be happiness,

Financial success,

Whatever,

You know,

Relationship success,

It can be anything really,

But,

You know,

Like a professional or someone you trust,

Or,

You know,

You have to,

And you really have to put your life in their hands and put your thinking in their hands for a while,

Because when I first started doing it,

All common sense became uncommon sense.

You know,

I knew,

I was a pretty intellectual thinker,

I would break things apart and make sense out of them,

And back up my findings with a long list of facts,

And prove it to people.

Oh,

See,

Let me tell you why,

You know,

My misery,

There was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

And most of the people would walk away from the conversation and be like,

Wow,

Poor Glenn.

Because I made a really good argument,

I was good at that,

You know,

I was good at rationalizing life and its behaviors and how it worked and why it wasn't my fault and all that stuff.

So when I started doing it somebody else's way,

I could come up with 20 reasons why I knew it wasn't going to work.

100% I knew in every core,

In the core of my being,

I knew it wasn't going to work.

And then all of a sudden it would work.

And I'm like,

Oh my God,

You got to be kidding me.

And most of the time I couldn't even understand why it worked because it was so foreign to the way I thought for 35 years.

It was so foreign that I couldn't even comprehend it.

I was like,

I was dumbfounded.

I just had to go with the fact that it worked,

Not that I understood why it worked.

What are some other ways people can be stuck?

What do you mean?

What about people that are stuck in,

You know what,

I think maybe the last,

One of the last podcasts we did,

A recent one of Starting Where You Are,

Sometimes people feel like they are stuck in success.

Maybe they have changed.

Maybe they have,

You know,

Maybe they've plateaued in a certain area and now the things that used to fulfill them aren't fulfilling them anymore.

Yeah,

But that's usually an example of kind of busyness.

You know,

Some people get a sense of fulfillment walking towards a goal and achieving them and succeeding them.

And it's just kind of a distraction from themselves.

You know,

So they just,

They get caught up in a journey of going and going and going and achieving and then all of a sudden they achieve and they get there and it's not that necessarily that they plateaued and then the same things aren't fulfilling them anymore.

It's that they actually got there and they realized that there was no fulfillment at the end.

You know,

There's no happy ending at the end of an unhappy road.

And there's no,

You know,

There's no,

If you're caught up in achieving something and you think that that's going to give you the fulfillment and the happiness you're looking for,

Then you get there and you're like,

Oh yeah,

I'm not really all happy and fulfilled.

Well,

That's because it doesn't come from achievement.

It doesn't come from,

You know,

Getting something or being something.

It comes from within.

And if you're growing along the way,

If you're changing who you are inside and becoming happier and learning lessons and growing along the way to an achievement,

Then once you get there,

You can get a great deal of fulfillment from an achievement because you've been growing along the way,

But it's not the actual achievement that you're feeling in that fulfillment and that happiness.

It's not the actual achievement.

It's just a marker of it.

What it is,

It's who you became along the way.

It's all the growth that you went through and lessons you learned along the way that brought you the happiness.

Do you think it doesn't help to get angry about being stuck?

In whatever way you are stuck?

That's kind of a catch 22 because like,

I mean,

You have to,

Anger is a natural feeling,

You know,

So there's no reason why we should say like,

We can't feel angry.

I mean,

We can feel angry,

But we can't stay there,

You know,

And actually anger can be a stepping stone to getting out because like,

Depression is a lower vibration than anger.

So if somebody's depressed and they're just sitting in that depression,

They actually have to take a step up the emotional ladder to get to anger.

So that can actually,

Anger can sometimes be progress,

You know.

And I have our quote for today.

You do?

Yeah.

All right.

Ready?

Hold on.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm ready.

Any action is often better than no action,

Especially if you've been stuck in an unhappy situation for a long time.

If it is a mistake,

At least you learn something,

In which case it's no longer a mistake.

If you remain stuck,

You learn nothing.

It was written by someone named Eckhart Tolle.

Yeah.

Tolle is amazing.

That's why I like reading Tolle because he just puts it right out there.

Yeah,

It's,

It is.

It's better to rock the boat than just to sit there.

And I've done that in times in my life and it hasn't been easy,

You know.

I mean,

I honestly,

I like really,

I believe in learning my lessons easy now.

It's something I say often.

It's something I hope for.

It's something I ask for because I've learned a lot of my lessons through pain and difficulty and that sucks.

I don't like learning like that.

It's painful.

So,

But in the past that I experienced a decent amount of fear and pain when I just took action because I was so stuck that I didn't know what else to do.

You know,

I was,

I was,

I had done a lot of work on myself and I just,

I couldn't see how to get out of my present job situation.

And I was like,

You know what,

I can't,

You know,

I tried finding another job for like a year and then I had another year anniversary at my job and I was like,

Oh no,

I've been looking for a year and I can't get out of this.

And then it happened on another year.

You know,

I mean,

Granted,

I got caught up in my life and stuff and there was times when I could have searched more and could have done more,

But I didn't.

That's the worst when you realize that a year has gone by like out of nowhere.

Yeah.

And it's like,

And I'm still stuck where I was and I'm not happy here.

And it happened to me two different times and I couldn't find my way out of it,

You know?

And I was just sitting there and I was like,

You know what,

I can't,

I can't do this.

If I hit a fourth year,

I'm going to lose it.

Like I'm too aware.

I know that I'm wasting my life.

I shouldn't be here.

I'm not happy.

I've tried to learn as much as I could from this situation.

And if I,

If I hit a fourth year anniversary,

I'm going to lose my mind.

So right around that third year anniversary,

I just went out and I really tried getting another job.

I found something.

I had no idea what it entailed.

I just knew it was another job and I just jumped on it.

And it was because I needed to take action.

And at that point,

I didn't even care what the action was.

So I hopped into this job and it was a nightmare.

I literally couldn't bring myself to do it.

It was,

It was just this outside sales job that was constant rejection.

I mean,

You would just knock on doors,

Go into these businesses and people were completely rude to you.

As soon as they,

As soon as you said hello,

They would insult you and throw you out.

And it was,

It was horrible.

I couldn't like,

My ego could not take those blows time after time after time.

And I just,

It just,

I could not get myself out of the car to go perform my job.

So I sat there and I was like,

Well,

I,

I need to support my son.

I need to pay my bills.

What do I do?

And I'm like,

Well,

I don't know how I'm going to do all that stuff,

But I can't go to work every day and lie to my boss and pretend that I'm doing a job that I'm not doing.

I have to be honest.

So I went in and I said,

I can't do this job.

And they were actually shocked.

They had high hopes for me.

They thought I was going to do well,

But I couldn't do that job.

So I left,

I explained why and I left.

And that went on about three or four months,

Maybe longer of no job.

And I couldn't collect unemployment because I had just quit.

And I was like,

And I'm,

And I'm trying to live off credit cards and trying to pay child support and support my son and do that.

I,

It was,

It was really scary and I don't recommend doing that,

But it was better than staying stuck,

You know,

At least six months.

Later I was in a different place.

I had a different job and you know what?

I didn't like that job either.

Sometimes,

Sometimes you can be stuck going after what you want.

Sometimes you can go down that road and they find out it's not the,

You know,

As Eckhart Tolle said,

It can be a mistake,

But that's okay.

Right.

Because you just,

You got,

You got a step closer.

You found out what didn't work.

And I did that.

That's kind of,

I guess that sums up what I did for occupation wise in,

For about the first six or seven years when I moved up from,

From Florida and I had all my spiritual awakenings and stuff.

I,

I was constantly looking around me trying to find out what I wanted to be and how I wanted to do it and,

And trying to be responsible and pay my bills in the meantime.

And I kept trying things for the wrong reasons.

You know,

I did,

I,

I,

You know,

I,

I awoke in,

In a lot of ways and I did a lot of wonderful things during that time,

But occupation wise,

I was just stumped.

I didn't know what to do.

You know,

So it took me a while to navigate through that.

But then finally I did,

You know,

Is,

And occupation wise,

The,

As soon as I got off the fact that I need to be,

As soon as I let go of the fear of not being responsible and not bringing home a big paycheck,

As soon as I let go of that fear and I focused on what my passion was,

That's when things started changing for the better.

You know,

It was just,

I had been raised that I needed to bust my butt and work hard and be responsible and,

And,

You know,

Take care of my responsibilities.

And I,

And I had been so irresponsible in my former life that now that I had my,

Myself together in a lot of ways,

I was capable of being this responsible person with these office jobs and it was just killing me because it wasn't who I was,

You know?

So it,

It took me a while.

That was a tough lesson for me to break through.

So,

But I had to rock that boat.

I needed to take some sort of action just so I didn't stay stuck.

I have one more quote.

Really along the lines of it's,

It's a sillier one.

Oh,

Okay.

So along the lines of,

Of that,

Of thinking that you want something going for it.

Thankfully,

Dreams can change.

If we'd all stuck with our first dream,

The world would be over on with cowboys and princesses.

Yeah,

Really?

It's true.

Stephen Colbert.

Nice.

Thank you,

Stephen.

And it's,

It's true.

We do change and that's,

That's why we can't,

You know,

When we look at how we're going to get somewhere that's 30 steps ahead,

It seems overwhelming because we're not capable of getting there.

And sometimes,

Sometimes that's not where we would be headed anyway,

But we don't know that until we start walking in that direction.

And as we walk in that direction,

We grow,

We learn,

We open up to ourselves.

And as,

As we become more of ourselves,

We can shape that dream that we have into what we want it to be.

But you know,

I think,

You know,

This,

This podcast was really around,

You know,

Staying stuck and it's,

Excuse me,

And I think it's,

It's just important to know that there is no risk.

There's no risk.

You know,

Try something for a few months.

You know,

Really bust your butt and try something because your life is worth it.

Your happiness is worth it.

Your fulfillment is worth it.

There's nothing more important than being walking around happy.

I mean,

It's because if you're happy,

You can accomplish anything else that you want in your life.

But if you're sitting around depressed and miserable,

You're not going to accomplish what you want.

You know,

So if you can just bust your butt for a few months and do really set up a structured system where you're accountable to somebody and really tried your best to break out of that rut,

Then,

You know,

With somebody else's advice,

Not your way,

With somebody else's advice,

And you really bust your butt for three months,

Then if it works,

You've got this wonderful happy life.

If it doesn't,

What did you lose?

You get to go back to being miserable.

You haven't lost anything.

You know,

So it's a win-win situation that you're risking nothing.

You're not happy where you are anyway,

So why don't you risk not being happy and you can have it back if it doesn't work.

And then three months later,

You might just change your life.

And I guarantee if you put in 110% effort,

Your life will change in those three months.

It'll change enough for you to see that it works and to continue on.

Guaranteed.

And if they want your help in those three months,

Where can they find you?

They can find me in Florida.

It's been cold.

I just want to get away.

No,

You can find me at life-enhancement-services.

Com and find me on Facebook,

Life Enhancement Services and Glenn Ambrose with two Ns on Facebook as well.

So there.

That's it.

That's it.

So,

You know,

Find some help,

Hunker down for three months and really make a push and you'll be amazed at what your life turns into.

So thanks for listening and we'll talk to you again soon.

This podcast is presented by New Shore Productions,

Executive producers,

Glenn Ambrose,

Benjamin Barber and David DeAngelis.