We all go through periods of our lives when we feel completely stuck. It can be an incredibly frustrating experience, but it’s also perfectly normal.
We all get stuck sometimes.
Feeling like a failure may be one of the worst aspects of getting stuck in our lives.
It is so easy for the mind to wonder, “Am I supposed to be doing something other than this?” Or worse, we can even start to think, “Maybe there is something intrinsically wrong with me.”
We often get stuck because most of us have no idea how to skillfully work with our own pain.
Two ways of dealing with pain that don’t help:
1. Repressing the pain we feel by putting on a big smile and pretending everything is great, when really we feel that everything sucks and is too hard.
2. Completely focusing on the pain and turning it into our identity and total existence.
The concept of impermanence is one of the most important Buddhist teachings that we can use to get unstuck. Everything is always changing.
There is a flow to life—a flow of arising and dissolving.