How to Get Unstuck When Life Feels Overwhelming (#042)

What if that crushing feeling of being stuck—the one where your feet feel nailed to the ground and every breath feels heavy—is actually your soul's way of preparing you for breakthrough? In this transformative solo episode, Amanda Parker reframes one of life's most uncomfortable experiences and reveals why that suffocating stuckness might be the exact energy you need to birth something extraordinary.

If you've ever felt paralyzed by an endless mental to-do list or wondered why you can see exactly what needs to change but can't seem to move the needle, this episode will shift everything. Amanda vulnerably shares her own recent creative crisis and draws a stunning parallel between feeling stuck and the final stages of childbirth—that unbearable discomfort right before new life emerges. "There is a point in time at which you will get so sick of your own... shit, that you will just push everything that you have into bringing that thing to life," she reveals, offering a completely new lens on what it means to feel trapped.

Beyond the mindset shift, Amanda delivers two game-changing techniques that will pull you out of overwhelm immediately: the brain dump method that transforms mental chaos into clear action steps, and the control assessment practice that puts you back in your power. You'll discover her three-category system for prioritizing (including the brilliant anxiety ranking method), learn why the Pomodoro technique works for even the most overwhelming projects, and understand how to distinguish between what's weighing you down versus what you can actually influence.

This isn't just about getting unstuck—it's about recognizing that your seasons of stagnation are sacred preparation for your next level of growth. What breakthrough might be waiting on the other side of your current discomfort? Listen now and discover the tools to transform your relationship with feeling stuck forever.

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Transcript

Amanda Parker: [00:00:00] When we're in this phase of being stuck, we think we'll never get out of it, and once we're out of it, we think we'll never go back in again. But the truth is that it really is an ebb and a flow. The lie that we tell ourselves is that when we're in one state, the other will never be attained again. You want to really acknowledge to yourself that wherever you are, this is not.

Permanent.

Welcome to Don't Step On the Bluebells, the podcast for personal healing and transformation takes center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides, and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations.

Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life. And don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode. Welcome to [00:01:00] today's episode of Don't Step On the Bluebells. Today we are talking about that familiar feeling that so many of us know and maybe are even suffering from right now, which is about that feeling of being stuck.

There is something so powerful in the energy of being stuck and feeling stagnant or trapped or like you can't really get out of the situation that you're in. And for most people we might be able to even. See the groundwork that was laid to guide us to this place where we now feel stuck. But sometimes you might be in an absolute flow and you're feeling that things in your life are going well, and then you might have those days that sneak up on you where you feel.

Stuck. So this is something that every single human being experiences, and I wanted to dedicate this episode to that topic because it's something that I have struggled through so many [00:02:00] times in my life and career, and even in the moments when it. Feels like everything's going well. I still experience those moments of heaviness, like I'm walking through the mud and I know I'm not alone.

And I've had a lot of conversations with friends and clients lately that are experiencing much of the same. So first I wanna dive into what exactly that feeling of being stuck is. I don't know that I need to go into so much detail here because we'll all have our own experiences and maybe you just wanna take a moment to connect with a time in your life where you really did feel completely like things were not.

Moving and no matter what you did, no matter how hard you tried, you could not seem to push the needle. So for some of you who are listening, this might be your current lived experience and for others it might be something that's in the not so distant [00:03:00] past these moments where we feel like. No matter what, we try to get ourselves out of it.

It just feels impossible. It's like that stagnant is quicksand and it just pulls us right back under as soon as we get any kind of momentum to pull us out. If you've connected with that moment in time or that memory, then you'll be able to feel exactly in your body where that stuckness lives. So, for example, if I were to close my eyes and I might feel this weight on my chest, or this feeling that like my feet are like nailed to the ground, like it's impossible to move through.

So you don't need to stay in that experience too long, but I just want you to have this understanding and also compassion for what that feels like, because when we're in this [00:04:00] phase of being stuck, we think we'll never get out of it. And once we're out of it. We think we'll never go back in again. But the truth is that it really is an ebb and a flow.

There's moments where we feel free, we can do anything. Our energy is light, and then there's those moments where we feel really heavy and like nothing seems to be moving in the way that we hoped that it would. Wherever you are on that spectrum, there's no right or wrong here. What's important is to know that it is a cycle.

That neither of these states is actually permanent. So the lie that we tell ourselves is that when we're in one state, the other will never be attained again. So you want to really acknowledge to yourself that wherever you are, this is not permanent. And if you're in a phase of freedom and lightness, recognizing that it's not permanent.

Is equally as important as when you're feeling stuck and you need to recognize this is not [00:05:00] permanent because you wanna really honor that your energy is giving you this space to create, to breathe, to be free, knowing that there will come a phase again when that's not the case. So in this momentum, what do you wanna experience?

What? What do you want to create? The same goes on the other end when you're feeling that really like, you know. In the mud feeling, recognizing that you will not be here forever helps you to just release and let go and to allow it to be what it is. So just the other day, I was having this experience myself.

You know, I've been building up a lot of momentum to create something new and with anyone who's ever created before, you know that this is a roller coaster of different emotions. So. I know that my creative process is not step by step. I know that there's no single formula that I can [00:06:00] follow that helps me to create with more ease.

Sure, there are some practices and rituals that I can create to put myself in the mindset and to create the space that I need to be able to do the thing I wanna do. But there's very often this phase right before something is brought into the world or I'm actually able to sit in it and move it forward and feel all of my energy pushing forward into birthing that thing, whatever it might be.

And it feels like this heavy. Like cloud cover, the resistance is so strong, and I know that is a part of the process because what it takes to bring something new into the world, it's like, you know, just think of when mothers are giving birth, the amount of energy that they need to be able to push. And if you're bringing a creative endeavor to life.

You also are gonna need that incredible amount of [00:07:00] momentum and energy to be able to bring that to the surface and everything that comes before that gestation period. You know, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes it's painful, and that feeling right before you actually break through can be suffocating.

It's like that last. Week or weeks before you finally break through the surface or before you finally give birth. I am not a mother myself, so I know this from stories, from friends or clients of mine that you're just so uncomfortable you can't. Stand it any longer. And I think that in the creative process, that stuck feeling is almost creating that sense of like, I just can't stand it anymore.

Because what do you do when you can't stand something? When you're finally so fed up with the situation, [00:08:00] you're gonna push it forward and you're gonna bring it to life. So there is a point in time at which you will get so sick of your own, please excuse my French shit, that you will just push everything that you have into bringing that thing to life or creating the momentum.

And sometimes it requires us to hit a rock bottom. It requires us to be so stuck and so unsure of how to move forward that we. Finally just surrender and say, okay, you know what? I can't do this on my own. What am I supposed to do? Please help me. Someone, please step in here and show me the way. I wanted to share a few thoughts of how you can get yourself out of that stuck feeling.

There are many different philosophies on this, but there's a few practices that I use that have really helped me over the years, and I will admit that it's not that I say, oh my God, I'm stuck, and then immediately I'm able to pull myself out of it. No, sometimes I'm [00:09:00] really in the thick of it and it takes me a while to recognize what's actually happening.

When I do, I have a choice to make. I can decide to stay in that feeling of being stuck, which my God is uncomfortable and sometimes excruciating to be there. Or I can find a way to really shift my energy or perspective so that it doesn't feel so heavy anymore. So in a recent experience when I was feeling really stuck, as I mentioned, you know, bringing this new creative project to life, and I've been feeling super overwhelmed by all the different elements that need to come together.

And by creating that clarity for myself of all these different elements that need to come together, sometimes that can create. A sense of ease or relief. But what happens for me very often is that I just feel overwhelmed. If I don't know where to begin and I don't know what the next best step is, I start to feel really overwhelmed by all the [00:10:00] things that need to happen.

So without getting really clear on exactly what needs to happen and possibly in what order, it can just feel like. You know, your brain is crowded with 153 to do items that they all feel like they have equal importance and value, and you don't know where to begin. So one of the ways that I recommend to get unstuck in this case, especially if it's the sense of overwhelm and not knowing how to move forward, would be take out a large sheet of paper.

Eight and a half by 11. Or if you have a whiteboard like I do over there, and you're gonna write out all of the different ideas and thoughts and projects and actions that are floating around in your mind in this very moment. Write out every single one. This is a complete brain dump. Of all of the different things that are making you feel [00:11:00] overwhelmed right now, and sometimes just putting them out on the page, first of all, gives you a lot of compassion for yourself because no wonder you're feeling overwhelmed.

If you've been carrying around 30 different items that you need to get done and not really acknowledging them or knowing where to begin, of course you're gonna feel stuck. Because you have no idea what's the right way to move forward. So put all of those different ideas out on the page and then start to look at them one by one.

You're gonna look at each item or action or thing that has been on your mind, and you're gonna give it a category. So I usually work with three categories. One is that it's. I usually start with the one that is like, this is absolutely not important. I can already take this off the list. Sometimes it's hard to make those choices, but looking at that whole list, it can become a whole lot simpler to say, you know what?

I am taking this off the [00:12:00] list. This doesn't need to be here. The second category of things is like, this is. Definitely important. I wanna get this done. There's no question that I need to tackle this. So there you've already got these two different lists. Hopefully you've got a lot of items on both. Then you're gonna have this middle category, which is a bit more of this nice to have.

They might be things that are important, but not today. Or that you know that you're gonna wanna tackle or create or work with in the future, but you don't actually need to put any energy or attention into it today. Something on that list might be, I don't know, doing your taxes. Yeah, it's gonna be important, but if the deadline is not coming up in the next two weeks, it doesn't need to be on your top priority list.

So once you have given yourself these three categories, first of all, you should already see. Start to feel a bit relieved because you can recognize that not everything that's been floating in your mind has equal importance [00:13:00] and needs to be tackled today. Then you're gonna take a look at that list of all the things that are important and do your best to prioritize those.

So the way that I prioritize is. I'll look. Sometimes it's very obvious, okay, a podcast episode needs to launch, and I know, yep. Here's the deadline. Here's all the things that I need to get done in order to launch this episode. And just by having a deadline in place, I already know, is this gonna be extremely important to tackle first or is this something that you know, perhaps can wait a few days or a week?

You're gonna look at priority and you are gonna give it a ranking. On priority, but you're also gonna take a look at how much. Anxiety that item gives you, I don't wanna use that word flippantly. I just know in my own experience, there's things that make me feel incredibly anxious because I don't know how to [00:14:00] start, or I don't know how to tackle it.

Maybe it's something brand new I've never done before. Maybe it's something like I need to pull together, you know, all of my receipts and expenses over the last year because I failed to do it on a regular basis. That's gonna create a lot of anxiety because it's huge. It feels almost insurmountable. So as I'm prioritizing, I also give an anxiety ranking of how much energy.

Is this taking from me? So if it's something that's maybe medium priority, but the amount of energy that it is taking from me day to day is so high that it becomes an urgent priority, it needs to get done because otherwise that level of anxiety and uncertainty is just gonna continue to build. Sometimes I'll also add right away if I know how long each task is gonna take.

That can help because it can help with some kind of planning that you can decide, oh, okay, look, all of these tasks [00:15:00] combined are gonna take me 10 hours. How can I spread this out over the next couple of days? Then you're able to make decisions about how you're spending your time, and this is gonna help just to clear out that sense of overwhelm and not knowing where to begin and give you the opportunity to already start to see through the.

Mess of it all. One other tip that I'll say when you start to actually tackle things, because I know that sometimes I have these big tasks and I can get lost in them for hours or days. I will work with a Pomodoro timer, and that is a timer. You can Google it. You can find many options online, but essentially you're giving yourself the opportunity to work in 25 minutes spurts.

So 25 minutes of work, five minutes pause. 25 minutes of work. Five minutes. Pause. 25 minutes of work and then you take a 30 minute break. So if you know that you have a big [00:16:00] task that feels overwhelming for you, you can break this down into this Pomodoro sets to make it a lot easier. And I promise you, you put on some music that you love.

You honor those breaks as they come up and you actually start to check off many of the items that have been on your list for a long time because you're giving yourself a. Definite container where the work needs to get done. And it works wonders for checking things off that list, especially those things that feel urgent and important, and you haven't quite known how to go about tackling them.

So one of the other ways that I really like to tackle this feeling of being stuck is to take a look at. I mean, I'm gonna say take a look at my mindset, but of course, when I'm in the thick of it, that's not what I'm thinking. I'm not saying, oh my God, what's my mindset today? But what I start [00:17:00] to look at is what are the things that I feel like are going wrong?

And I'll write it out. I'll either journal it out or write it out as a list, all these things that are bothering me, and then I'll take a look at the things that are truly out of my control. So, for example, I, you know, write a list that I'm maybe feeling a bit isolated, that I'm feeling alone, that I'm feeling like I'm not moving my body enough.

So these are things that feel like they're going wrong, but if I look at what's out of my control. Actually, very few of those things are out of my control. They're just an experience that I'm having right now. But if I write out the things that are outta my control, that might be the weather. Like I can't control if it's rainy or it's sunny in London, but I can control if I'm feeling isolated.

I can call up a friend, or I can go to a coffee shop, or I can go into Central London [00:18:00] and find my way into being with other people. So I take stock of the things that are out of my control, and then I take a look at everything that is actually in my control. And from this, I start to look at my perspective.

So what have I been viewing that feels heavy? That feels hard. And that has actually felt a bit outta my control, but isn't. And if I look at my perspective and it's leaning towards, Ugh, everything's hard. This isn't working. You know, nothing's working out the way that I hoped, I might be able to look at it and say, oh, actually, like all of these things really are in my control.

So I can shift my perspective and say, okay, I've been feeling lonely. Here's what I could do about it, and I start to put myself back in a position of feeling empowered. Now, granted, there are many things that are out of our control, but once we start to realize what we can and can't control, [00:19:00] we recognize what we can actually take action on and what we might need to just surrender to and allow, because we cannot do anything about it.

Anyway, this tool is super important when you're just feeling in the thick of things and you really can't make sense of why I'm gonna leave you with just those two tools for the time being because one of them might speak to you more than the other, and you are welcome to practice and try it out. There are many different ways that you can hit reset, like.

Doing some breath work, practicing with your breath, journaling, meditating. For those of you who have a practice, you can use prayer. So there are a lot of different ways that you can help yourself to get unstuck, but I would love for you to try one of those two methods that I've just shared in more detail [00:20:00] and see what the impact is.

I like to give myself. Experiments that I am, I might try to do that first exercise, you know, twice over the next two weeks and see what happens. It might be something that you give yourself a 30 day commitment that every day for 30 days you take stock of what's in your control and what's not in your control.

And by doing that, you're giving yourself a chance to try something new, to see how it feels if it supports you. Fantastic. You have a new method in your back pocket. If it doesn't, great, leave it and find something else that works for you better. So I would love to hear from you if you try out one of these different ways to help yourself get out of that sticky.

Stuck heavy feeling. And also let me know if there's something missing from this for you. So if you've been feeling really stuck and this really doesn't speak to you and you [00:21:00] actually need something different, I would love to hear from you and be able to support and create something different. That would actually help you with whatever it is that you're going through at the moment.

So I really appreciate, as always, you tuning into this episode, and I hope that you've been able to walk away with something. Really tangible and concrete that is gonna help you move the needle in your own life. So thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Don't Step On The Bluebells, and I can't wait to see you next time.

Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Don't Step On The Bluebells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five star rating wherever you listen. And don't forget to hit subscribe and follow along. So you never miss a new episode.