What if Your Stuckness is Just a Story You Keep Telling?

Today we're exploring subtle ways we check out—even when we say we’re ready for change. Have you ever caught yourself saying you want something to change, while quietly sabotaging your own progress? That subtle contradiction is at the heart of this deeply reflective episode where we explore the quiet habit of "checking out" that keeps us stuck in patterns we claim we want to break.

Drawing from personal experience, I share how I recently found myself avoiding recording this very podcast after deciding to expand to YouTube. That moment of resistance revealed the powerful difference between expressing interest in change and truly deciding to create it. We often don't recognize our own avoidance tactics – whether scrolling through social media, getting caught in thought spirals, or blaming external circumstances – and how these disconnections keep us from our truth and power.

The most transformative realization comes when we explore the concept of "secondary gains" – those hidden benefits we receive from staying stuck. Perhaps remaining in that unfulfilling job or relationship feels safer than facing the unknown. Maybe telling yourself "I can't" protects you from the vulnerability of trying. The shift from "I can't" to "I won't" acknowledges your true agency and invites honest self-examination about what's really holding you back.

Reflection Questions:

• Where in my life do I feel stuck (or believe I’m stuck)?
• What story am I telling about why I won’t shift it?
• What am I gaining by staying here?
• What might be possible if I chose to check in instead?

Chapters

• 1:57 Welcome & Mindful Moment
• 2:41 Checking Out vs. Creating Change
• 4:11 My Own Struggle with Avoidance
• 7:20 The Secondary Gains of Staying Stuck
• 9:50 Questions for Checking In
• 13:03 Finding Freedom Through Self-Awareness
• 16:20 Final Thoughts & Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:59

Welcome back to the Pure Possibilities podcast. Before we dive in today, I would love to take a moment to just connect, so take a deep breath in and feel your feet on the floor, your body, your heart, maybe even close your eyes for a moment, if it's safe to do so. Today we are talking about something that I've been noticing in my own life and in the lives of people around me. It's the quiet habit of checking out, even when we say we're ready for change. There's a big difference to me between saying that you want something to change and actually making the decision to create change in your life, and so we're going to talk a little bit about that today, and we are going to start today's episode with a card pull from the Magic of what if? Card deck volume two, rather than ending with it. I'm kind of curious to flip it around a little bit. It's pretty common that the card pull ends up resonating with what the episode was about, and I'm wondering if we can switch it up and allow it to put some energy into the episode. So let's see what happens. All right, so today's card is what if I love knowing anything is possible? What if I love knowing anything is possible. I would say that that absolutely goes with today's episode, because, you know, it's easy to think that when you're checking out, it's like this big dramatic thing like disappearing or numbing out completely. But often it can be really subtle, and it actually happened to me right before this. So I sat down to record and what I was recording I wasn't feeling it and so I kept trying and I kept trying and I'm like, yeah, this isn't working. So it's really important to me that I share real life with you, because I hope that it helps you to feel like you're not alone, because we are all doing this whole life thing together and and we have our ups and downs and we have our moments where we feel okay and where we don't feel okay and where we feel really aligned and where we don't. And I actually started really getting in my head because I have made the decision that I want to add the podcast onto YouTube and so with that comes video, which I actually record the episodes in video all the time and I put reels out with, you know, clips of the show. But this like felt, it feels a little bit like Ooh, like this is a big deal, because the whole episode is going to be on video and be on YouTube, and so I truly believe that that was like a little bit of a block for me as I was trying to sit here and record.

Speaker 1: 4:09

So I got up and I went and danced for a little bit, did some things around my house and I'm like, okay, am I checking in with myself? Because I do like to get curious, like very aware. Am I actually avoiding something? Or do I just need to like reset for a minute? Or am I checking out? Am I just completely finding distractions so that I don't actually have to do what I said that I wanted to do?

Speaker 1: 4:36

Because a lot of times we will say that we want to do something, like we're interested in change, we're interested in doing something, but we don't actually make the decision to do it. Or maybe we do make the decision to do it and then we find excuses or reasons to keep us from actually moving forward. And sometimes it's really subtle. Maybe you pull out your phone and you just kind of start scrolling. Know 30 minutes to an hour passes and you're checked out of whatever you were working on.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Or it can also manifest in a way of getting stuck in a thought it can be blaming people or circumstances and really just giving away our power without even realizing it. So, please, this is not a judgment. We all do this quite often and it happens, I think, more when life is feeling overwhelming, when our nervous system is feeling completely tapped out or we're afraid of what might happen if we actually change, if we actually take this step, if we actually do the thing that we say that we want to do. But the longer we stay there, the more disconnected we become from our truth, from our power and from all of the possibilities. So this came up for me the other day. This comes up quite often actually Like what is the secondary gain that I'm getting from avoiding doing whatever I said that I wanted to do, from making whatever change that I said I wanted to change?

Speaker 1: 6:20

I'm going to use an example of when I left my job, like I stayed in a story that I needed to have that income, I needed to have that consistency, I needed all of that. But the secondary gain was that it kept me in a space of not fully trusting myself, not fully putting myself out there, which kept me feeling safer in my body, because change is unfamiliar and it can feel scary, and so maybe you get to be right about your story. Maybe you get comfort and sympathy and support, maybe you get to avoid that scary unknown, because when you stay stuck, even if it completely sucks, it's familiar, which means it's comfortable, which keeps you where you're at and keeps you from moving forward. So I say this with the most amount of love, that saying nothing ever changes, or I just can't those feel safe. But what if it's not true? What if it's just a habit that you've gotten yourself into because you're replaying the story over and over and over again and you've convinced yourself that it's true when it actually might not be?

Speaker 1: 7:47

So what I would like to invite you to do is to check in rather than checking out. So we're not bypassing, we don't bypass feelings, and it's not just oh, I'm just going to be positive about everything, but it's checking in regularly and honestly with yourself. So you can start by asking yourself what am I feeling right now? Where in my body do I feel? Tight, heavy or closed off? What might I be avoiding? What would feel supportive right now? Not perfect, just supportive. And again, you don't have to have it all figured out, but these are just those pauses that we take or could take throughout our day, and the actual noticing and the awareness is where it really begins.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So if you are in a space to write or reflect, here's a couple of questions that I would like you to ask yourself. Where in my life do I feel stuck? Where in my life do I believe that I feel stuck? What story am I telling myself about why I can't shift it and actually I don't even want to say can't? What story am I telling about why I won't shift it? Not can't, because you can do anything, but there's reasons deep down that we won't do something, and sometimes just even getting honest with yourself about the difference between can't and won't is huge. When you shift that can't to I won't do this. It's pretty powerful and it kind of calls you out on your own shit.

Speaker 1: 9:33

So the next one is what am I gaining by staying here? Like, what is that secondary gain? What benefit am I actually receiving from it and what might be possible if I chose to check in instead? Even just stopping and asking yourself these questions is a huge win, because when we are noticing and getting curious and literally checking in with ourself, it can be so helpful because you can actually get curious and say is this actually true?

Speaker 1: 10:10

Because a lot of times, the things that we're thinking, they're not even true. They're not even true. We just use them as an excuse to keep us safe and keep us small and keep us from moving forward, because change is unfamiliar and it feels scary, which is one of the main reasons why you want to regulate your nervous system, which is why I wanted to start with breathing, because these things that come up you know I'm calling myself out on it too. Do you know what I mean? Like I literally got up and I was avoiding recording the show that I love to do, but then I added the story in about YouTube and got all like in my head about it and it it doesn't even matter.

Speaker 1: 10:53

So there is a version of you who feels free and empowered and alive and knows that anything is possible when we get out of our own way and when we make a decision to check in with ourself. And what I needed to do in that moment was I went and shook my ass, I went and danced, I got out of my head by doing some things around my house, did the dishes swept, you know like I found things to do to keep me out of going down a spiral about something that isn't even true. It's not even true. So that version of you who feels free and empowered and alive, they're inside of you and you don't need to do anything drastic to access them. You just need to be willing to see where you're checking out and choose for a moment to check back in and reconnect to yourself and it's. It's really.

Speaker 1: 11:59

It's an ongoing practice of noticing and just that consciousness and that awareness of what am I doing, how am I feeling? Like, how are you really? How are you really feeling today and what can you do to again not have it outside of you but to pull it back in and get real with yourself about, like, what am I actually gaining by staying stuck in this story, by staying in this moment that I'm choosing to not allow myself to move forward? We can all go down the rabbit hole of stories and it's choosing to be aware and when, like, I call myself out all the time, like, what am I doing? Is that thought that I have? Is it even true? So, going back to the YouTube example, what was my secondary gain from allowing that to get in my head? Because, if I choose to not put my podcast on YouTube, nothing bad happens. However, if I choose to put it out there, all kinds of amazing things could happen, and I was allowing it to stop me from moving forward, and that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 13:26

And so when you are paying attention to those stories that you tell yourself, you know maybe it's the story about somebody not responding to a message from you and you go down a rabbit hole of you know making it mean something about you when it has nothing to do with you. Or you're stuck in a story about a relationship ending and what it means and what it means about you, and none of it's probably even true. But if you stay stuck in those stories, it holds you back and you feel like you're keeping yourself safe and comfortable. But you're really doing yourself a disservice by not moving forward and living the absolute best life that you could live if you choose to. So many people stay stuck in the story and I would invite you to not be a person who stays stuck.

Speaker 1: 14:27

You have so much potential and so many possibilities of all the things that you can do and create and the life that you can live if you choose to, so please don't allow yourself to stay stuck in those stories, get curious, ask yourself questions Is this actually true and what am I gaining from continually telling myself this story or this belief over and, over and over again? A belief is just a thought that you keep having and if you continue to stay in that like, you can change it because you you created the thought and the belief to begin with, which means you have the ability to shift that and change the belief If you actually want it to be different. You have that power. It's all within you. So if this resonates with you and you want a gentle way to return to yourself, check out the free audio that is exclusively for you guys listening to the show.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Return to you at podcastpurepossibilitiesnet slash return to you. The link is also in the show description, and if this stirred something up for you, I would love to hear. You can leave me a comment in the show description just by texting the show, or you can reach out to me on social media too. So come, share your reflections in our podcast community. Until next time, keep returning to yourself. One moment, one choice at a time. Hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. Much love.