What to do when you feel trapped in your life? When we feel trapped we feel like we can’t change anything. The walls close in and the more we think about making some kind of change, the more futile it seems. Our mind is on constant ‘lookout’ for escape opportunities to make things different. Even so, we go about our day and things remain the same.
The real problem is our minds. Our reaction to what is going on is our biggest difficulty. We resist the things we don’t want in life but there’s a saying “What we resist persists”. If we are pushing things away in our minds, saying no to things which exist already in our lives, we get a build up or resentment and this creates more of the same.
Notice how you label things in your mind during your average day. What do you judge about yourself and others as you go about your daily business? These are all forms of resistance which are destroying your inner peace. If you’re focusing on what you don’t have, what you want and are judging yourself and others for what ‘is’ right now, you are creating an inner resistance which feeds your unhappiness.
What To Do When You Feel Trapped In Your Life
The could be many outward reasons why you feel trapped too. Perhaps you don’t have the partner you want, or your partner doesn’t act in the way you want. Perhaps your job isn’t well paying enough or your boss treats you badly. You ‘should’ be living in a nicer area but you can’t afford it. Etc etc. As your mind fills up with these judgements and labels, you feel disempowered and resentful. The more you think about how your boss or co-worker spoke to you the more you fill up with anger and hatred.
You go home and take this feeling with you, expecting your home life to somehow ‘repair’ the damage done at work. Except it doesn’t, it seems to be the same ‘deal’ at home too! You fall out with your parner and are surrounded with problems. No is no escape and you feel utterly trapped. When you look for a way out your mind is only drawn back to your growing responsibilities and problems. So you feel trapped.
Relax – Things Always Change
What to do when you feel trapped in your life? The thing to remember is that your mind is part of the problem. You perceive through your mind. The ‘real’ world is filtered through our perception of it. No one sees the world is quite the same way. How is that possible? Because they filter things through their beliefs, attitudes and their own personal ‘model’ of the world. Change in ineviatable and stressing and worrying will only generate more things to stress and worry about.
The law of attraction states that like attracts like. On the level of thought, a stressed out mind will continually attract more opportunities to create more stress and anxiety. Conversly, if you learn to quiet your mind and focus on more pleasing things, you can make your live a little more livable quite quickly. It’s not the events of life which are difficult, although some most definately are. It is our continual dialogue within our own minds which makes our life unbearable. If we change this dialogue with ourselves, we can also change our perception of our current situation and our inner reaction to it.
Two effective ways of doing this are:
- Start a gratitude diary
- Start regular meditation of just 5 minutes a day
This short 5 minute video explains how expressing gratitude is scientifically proven to generate more happiness:
Acceptance Is More Peaceful Than Struggle
A gratitude diary can work miracles in your life. Every day write down everything you are grateful for. When you start this exercise you might find it difficult. However, everyone has something they can be grateful for. Whether it be their health, the clothes on their back, the roof over their head or the food in their bellies. In the western world particularly, we have become so focused on the material side of things that we forget to appreciate our own bodies, without which we would lose everything.
What To Do When You Feel Trapped in Life
There’s practical steps you can take in life to make actual changes too. Firstly though it’s definitely worth doing the exercises in the first part of the article. That might be enough to ‘shift’ your energy into a more positive vibration to affect some subtle changes. Watch The Shift on YouTube here for a deeper look at how this can change your perception.
If you’re still wondering what to do when you feel trapped in your life, there are some practical steps you can take too. It could be you have become passive in certain areas of your life, and now you are beginning to resent handing over control. There are ways to take back some of your power, without completely throwing out the baby with the bath water.
Make Some Goals
These don’t have to be major life changing goals either. And they shouldn’t be at this stage either. Small goals can help you feel more in charge of your life and help you move forwards, even if it is only in certain areas. For example, a great goal would be to develop your fitness somehow. Fitness is related to your mental health too so some kind of fitness goal will fit the purpose of “what to do when you feel trapped in your life”.
Even if this feels like it has nothing to do with your problems, it can help in two ways:
- You are purposely setting and completing an objective – this is empowering
- You will get fitter and as a by-product you will also become mentally stronger.
You don’t have to run a marathon or anything crazy. Just set a small fitness goal which could be something like joining a gym and going 2-3 times a week. Or running every day. Once you have done that improve on it and shift your goal accordingly. Start with small achievable goals which give you enthusiasm and are high on your own personal scale of desirability.
Another idea for a goal could be meeting up with an old friend, joining a club or starting a new hobby.
Trapped In Your Career?
If you feel trapped by your job or career you could set a goal to enquire into a new position each week/month. Don’t put yourself under undue stress but take some positive action. Positive action is a massive stress reliever. It puts you in the driving seat of your life. Maybe ask some friends if they know of other career possibilities. You can also start your own online business here.
What to do when you feel trapped in your life and nothing seems to matter? If you feel this way you could be severely depressed and you should seek some help from a doctor or professinal. If you have lost hope completely you should definitely seek out someone who can help you.