Feeling stuck? Moving through overthinking and redirecting rebellious energy

Have you ever felt completely stuck or bogged down in your life? You want something different, something more or something less. More alignment and less stress, more energy and less procrastination, more movement and less overthinking, and more openness and less resistance. And it can be unclear how to get there. This series of blog posts will explore what gets us stuck, why (we often do things for good reason!) and how to experience healing and change. To start, let’s explore how overthinking, ruminating and inner resistance or misdirected rebellious energy may keep us feeling stagnated or trapped.

What keeps you stuck?

You can get stuck in feelings, patterns, behaviors, and situations that you’ve outgrown and just don’t fit with who you are and who you want to be.  For example, you can get stuck in a job that makes you feel miserable, relationships that deplete you, and everyday routines that fail to nourish or restore you. If you’re feeling stuck, it’s often because you care and it might reflect feeling conflicted about what you need or want. It can also come from feeling indecisive or uncertain about what to do and with struggling to accept a new reality in your life that feels unacceptable. You can feel weighed down by heavy emotions, including chronic stress and a multitude of fears. Before you try to get unstuck, I want you to pause for a moment and hold space for this struggle. It’s okay that you feel this way, you’re not alone, and it will get better. Give yourself compassion for this hard ‘in-between’ time that you’re stuck in.  This is an important step, before you can move forward in healing and change, you need to meet yourself with kindness where you’re at. Knowing what is keeping you stuck and why helps with moving through it.

The Overthinking trap

Ever feel like you’re thinking yourself in circles? This can deplete our inner resources quickly and can keep us feeling trapped. When we overthink or ruminate, we often focus on what I call ‘sticky bits’. These are stories and memories that become stuck in our brains. They’re often painful stories about rejection, hurt, loss, failure and abandonment. We get ‘stuck’ on these ‘bits’ because we’re trying to think our way through them. And sometimes this works- it does help us view this story through a lens of understanding or compassion. However, if we don’t experience movement in how we think about these ‘bits’ it can leave us feeling icky and discouraged. When this happens, try this gentle approach: Notice how feelings connected to these sticky bits show up in the body (e.g., tense shoulders, pit in stomach, clenched jaw, tightness in throat, pressure in chest). Try naming the feelings and validate them. It makes sense that you feel this way and even if it doesn’t make sense, it matters that you’re in pain or feeling discomfort. 

Sometimes we need to gently feel our way through rather than thinking it.

When feeling your way through becomes too intense, try using distraction or self-soothing. Take a shower, watch a favorite TV show, put on the song that makes you feel good, go for a walk, have a nap (sometimes sleep is the best reset button), talk with a compassionate friend and/or journal. I find that writing down all of my thoughts in a brain dump helps slow down the cycle and allows me to leave the thoughts on the page for me to come back to when I’m feeling more emotionally calm or centered. Often, I see these worries or sticky bits in a different way when I’m feeling rested and more open to seeing things from different perspective.  

Misdirected rebellious energy

Do you have an inner rebel? It’s the part of you that resists all the ‘shoulds’ and expectations thrusted on you- whether that comes from inner or outer messages. It creates rebellious energy**, which leads to acts of resistance to oppressive narratives.

It’s empowering to resist that which we don’t deserve or need to own!

Sometimes that energy gets misdirected and shows up in ways that feel like acts of resistance but are not healthy for us in excess or in the long-term. For example, this can show up as chronically staying up late at night to get quiet time for yourself (“revenge bedtime procrastination”), only to be exhausted the next day. It can also present itself in excessive drinking, drug use, smoking, disordered eating, procrastinating and avoidance. Ultimately, we each decide if the rebellious energy is not good for us and can explore what underlying messages and needs it is trying to tell us. We can let that inner rebel know that we hear the concerns and redirect that energy into actions that do align with our values.

If you find yourself feeling the urge to resist doing something or feel yourself drawn to something you know you ‘shouldn’t’ do- your inner rebel may be speaking to you.  Pause in this moment and listen- have you been focused too much on doing what others expect and not enough of what you need? 

Here are some ways to consider directing that rebellious energy:

Love yourself as you are! Meet the unlikeable bits with compassion and care— these might actually be some of the most beautiful parts of you. And celebrate and utilize your personal strengths.

Take care of yourself! Caring for yourself includes things that feel good and are good for you. Go to the dentist (argh, I need to do this), turn your phone off, make time for the activities you enjoy, declutter that junk drawer, get your taxes done, and take time to rest.

Advocate for what matters! This includes you. I’m a fierce mama bear when it comes to advocating for my kids, my clients, and the causes that matter to me… and I’m working on learning how to do that for myself as well, even when it inconveniences or upsets someone else. 

Make time to rest and restore! We don’t need to push through every moment of the day. Resist the messages of hustle culture and rest. And if you’ve been struggling with motivation, you can use the fierce rebellious energy to do the restorative things you know will make you feel better.

Next steps

Meet those stuck feelings with compassion, this is a hard space to be in. Then approach it with curiosity, explore what is keeping you stuck and why. Is it serving and purpose? If you’re overthinking, it’s likely that you’re trying to think your way through and figure out solutions. If you’re experiencing inner rebelliousness, you may be living your life based on what is expected of you (or the way it’s 'always been') rather than what you want and need, so it makes sense why you want to resist it. This blog began exploring alternative ways to navigate both of these experiences. Next we will focus on how big feelings like shame and fear can keep us stuck, as well as how they can lead to avoidance behaviors such as numbing, distraction and procrastination. If you’re feeling stuck, talking with a therapist or mental health professional can help. Contact me for help finding someone that will be a good fit for you and your circumstances.

 

To read more on the topic of feeling stuck and much more, check out my Instagram @compassionate_counsellor

*This blog is for informational purpose only. It does not represent therapeutic advice.

**The term 'rebellious energy' was inspired by and expanded based on my clinical work and the following book: Pershing, A., & Turner, C. (2019). Binge eating disorder: The journey to recovery and beyond. New York, NY: Routledge.