Feeling Trapped?

November 7, 2016

Do you think you have no options and feel frustrated by your current situation?  Are you trapped by your fears, self doubts, negative self talk and bad habits?  Would you like to free yourself to have the career/business and life you desire? 

Trapped in the Past 

We can feel trapped anytime we find ourselves in a situation where:

• we feel we have no choice or no options
• we feel we are unable to escape from a situation
• something blocks us from doing what we want
• we feel entangled in a situation and don’t know how to get out of it.

Whether we experience any of the above in a relationship, career, health, family, friends or life generally, it can be frustrating and can have us feeling helpless or hopeless being in that situation.  Because often it is our past fears, self doubts and unwanted patterns that have us feel trapped, it is possible to stop feeling trapped by quickly and safely addressing these.

Trapped in a Comfort Zone 

Often we can be trapped in our comfort zone.  Our life is just OK – things aren’t so bad that we need to do anything about it and they aren’t so great that we are jumping for joy; they are just comfortable.  We get used to life being the way it is.

There are several ways that you can identify that you are in your comfort zone:

• life feels like a rat race, a treadmill, “same old”
• you have dreams and your fears and self doubts prevent you from taking action towards them
• you put off doing the things you really want to do towards your goals
• you lack direction, purpose and goals in your career/relationship/life
• you feel frustrated and unfulfilled with your career, relationship, health, finances and life, yet you do nothing about it
• you shy away from taking any risks and crave the security of what you now know
• you have stagnated at work and in your relationships – things have become mundane, unexciting or boring
• you lack challenge and growth and find everything you do too easy and automatic
• you gravitate towards the familiar (eg. same restaurant, same holiday destinations, same friends, same job, same route to work, same weekend activities, etc) rather than seek out new adventures and experiences.

Known versus Unknown 

Being creatures of habit, we can allow ourselves to be trapped by our comfort zone, even if it is not fulfilling us.  Often we opt for the easy way, for mediocrity, for what we know because what we don’t know is unknown – it is unfamiliar.  We sometimes label the unknown as scary because it is unknown.  What if instead, the unknown was exciting because we chose to create what we do want.

The comfort zone keeps us trapped because we mistakenly believe that the “known” is safe.  Often the “known” can be unsafe and disempowering if our thoughts, emotions and behaviours limit us, rather than help us to be, do and have what we want.  When the “known” disempowers us or has us stay in dysfunctional personal or professional relationships, the “known” becomes the uncomfortable zone.  Yet, some people stay there and remain unhappy because of their fears and self doubts.  For example, someone who believes that they are undeserving of happiness will put up with dysfunctional personal and professional relationships because they believe that they do not deserve any better.

Once the past fears, self doubts and unwanted past patterns are addressed, they stop recreating the same past dysfunctional relationships and patterns.  Then, the “unknown” future becomes much safer.  You feel empowered and confident to attract and create the future you desire – the scary and uncertain “unknown” is transformed into a certain, safe and fulfilling new “known”.

Would you like to create an exciting “known”? Here are some free NLP resources to assist you right away. You are also welcome to post your comments and questions below or email me for a confidential reply.

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