054 - Getting Unstuck

Joining me is Donnalynn Riley. 

She is a Licensed Spiritual Health Coach who helps heart-centered entrepreneurs use spiritual and emotional tools to solve business problems. Much of the time the problems that entrepreneurs run into require a new level of clarity or an adjustment in emotional response to get back on track. But for those times when the problems are really about business systems, Donnalynn has been the CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation so she also has many years of business systems, operations, management, and marketing experience. 

To learn move, visit www.donnalynnriley.com

In this episode we will cover:

• Unstuck Defined
• Hiding Our Stuckness
• Awareness
• Tolerances
• Three Step Process
• Procrastination
• Disappointments
• Value The Moments
• Equilibrium
• Separation Between Body & Brain

Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you :)

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Special thanks to Donnalynn Riley for being on the show.

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Transcript

Marisa Huston : 0:00

Welcome to Episode 54 on the Live Blissed Out podcast. Did you know that problems that stem from self confidence issues are the number one reason entrepreneurs fail? Hello action takers! Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help us get the scoop and the lowdown on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping achieve bliss through awareness and action. Thanks for joining me. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. And any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Joining me is Donna Lynn Riley. She is a licensed spiritual health coach who helps heart centered entrepreneurs use spiritual and emotional tools to solve business problems. Much of the time, the problems that entrepreneurs run into require a new level of clarity or an adjustment in emotional response to get back on track. But for those times when the problems are really about business systems, Donna Lynn has been the CEO of a multi million dollar corporation. So she also has many years of business systems, operations management and marketing experience. To learn more visit www.donnalynnriley.com. Heard of 17 hats? I use it to organize and automate my small business and I swear by it. Their feature packed platform saves me time and money, and lets me focus on what I do best. Not paperwork. And only because you've been referred by me, a 17 hats member, you can get this special pricing half off their normal pricing for two years. You can save even more if you sign up for longer. Just follow the link in the show notes to let 17 hats know I sent you, help support the show and get this limited time invitation only sale pricing. 17 hats. Goodbye clutter and chaos, hello organized and easier. Donalynn, welcome to the show!

Donnalynn Rilye : 2:17

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here!

Marisa Huston : 2:20

I am looking forward to this conversation. Everybody gets to the point where they put things off, and they feel like they're not moving ahead with whatever goals they're trying to achieve. What this stuck mean to you?

Donnalynn Riley : 2:34

There are so many ways that it manifests in people's lives, but it is actually kind of hard to define. I think in its really sort of pure and not connected to anything sort of state, it is really the lack of movement. Literally being not moving forward in any direction even. But I think that it manifests in a lot of different ways where people feel like they lost interest in things or that they have undone projects. That the kind of thing. When you kind of look at your life and you say, well, how do I feel about that? That feeling of being trapped in a situation, or the feeling of being at a dead end or not moving forward are all part of that. And there are precursors to that were the hesitations that you have may even be a key for you to sort of predict that I'm headed in a direction of slowing the wheels and becoming stuck in this moment, right, like I'm going through mud. So there's a lot there. And I think that people often are in different stages of that progression in different areas of their life. So you might have one part of your life that is really stuck, and another area of your life that is still moving forward slowly. And another area of your life that you're flying in. There's spillover, but maybe not everything in your whole life at the same time stopping. It is hard to see in your life, particularly because you're up close. And I find that my spouse, my parents, my children, tells me that I'm stuck. But I don't know if I'm stuck. I just feel like I'm not ready to make that decision. Right? It's a bit tricky.

Marisa Huston : 4:17

It is. And I'm glad that you mentioned that there are different parts of your life that can be stuck and others not. I think that that's one of the things that happens in our lives is we tend to focus on a particular task and we do it so well, and we enjoy it and we keep moving forward and progressing there. But then all of a sudden, all the other things that we don't feel as comfortable with, they get ignored. And then we have to start weighing the importance because it doesn't necessarily mean that because we're doing this one thing that that's the priority. We just happen to be doing it maybe because we're more comfortable and it's something that we've gotten into the groove of doing yet this other thing that we've set aside might be a higher priority, but we keep pushing it aside for whatever reason. And then we realize later that I wish that I had put more focus on that, because that seems to be more impactful for me or it's something that I value more, don't you think?

Donnalynn Riley : 5:13

Yeah, I do. So one of the ways that we kind of hide our own stuckness from ourselves is exactly the way that you are describing where we busy ourselves with the parts of life that are actually unimportant to the moving forward. They're not facilitating that moving forward in a meaningful way. But they are keeping you busy, and they make you look busy to the people around you. And so you're not getting the results you want, and you're not getting the results that you are supposed to be getting for your goals. But you are still working really hard so nobody can complain. Your kids can't come to you and say there's a problem here. Your parent can't come to you. People in your life can't come to you and say we got a problem because you're laying in bed all day. If you were laying in bed all day would be much easier to get to it to say, okay, there's a real problem here we got to deal with. But I think the trickier time is when you're not laying in bed all day, you're working super hard, and you're not getting any.

Marisa Huston : 6:14

And it's funny you say that. I like to sew, and I know that in the sewing and quilting community, we have this acronym that we call UFOs, or unfinished objects. And it's really something that happens quite often with sewers and quilters, where they buy all the materials, they're so excited to work on the project, or maybe they do a piece of the project, but they never get it finished. And in fact, there are shows dedicated to helping people get those unfinished plans done, because everybody hasn't. They have these little bins and they're going yeah, yeah, I meant to do that two years ago and it's been growing cobwebs and nothing's happening and yet they have the desire to do it. But for some reason, the motivation isn't there. They just keep looking at it, but they never actually take action. What are some of the things that are causing us then to be stuck even though we have the desire maybe, somehow we just can't get going?

Donnalynn Riley : 7:12

So I find that one of the common elements in working with people when they are stuck is a profound lack of awareness of themselves. So this can manifest in a couple of different ways. I could be completely unaware that there's a problem. That person typically is more like the person I was talking about earlier, where they're blissfully going around working at everything, but their closet is filling up with those unfinished objects you just talked about. Or they're unaware on a level where they know that there is a problem. Oh, yeah, I know my closets full. But they feel that they're going to either use it against themselves and say, I am not enough, right? I am not okay. I am so bad at this. I never do the things I'm supposed to do and they beat themselves up with it. Or they say, Yeah, well, it's okay because it will wait for me. In the broader context these are places where I classify them as being unaware of yourself in that your skewed viewpoint on yourself that says, I'm so terrible because I have a closet full of unfinished sewing projects is skewed. You're not terrible. You have a closet full of unfinished things. It's not a comment on the quality of your being. It's just is. It just exists. So there's a lack of perspective that happens that really sort of flies in the face of true awareness of self.

Marisa Huston : 8:38

Based on what you're saying, the thing that comes to mind for me, is also that they're not aware of how they are sacrificing their personal happiness. Let's say you want to finish a quilt, but now you got to worry about homeschooling your kid or you have to cook dinner, or you got to do all these other responsibilities in your life, or you gotta run your business. Those always take priority even though what fills your heart and what makes you the happiest is finishing that quilt. You put it aside and you forget about it. Like you don't even want to be reminded because you're frustrated that it's something you want to do you have the desire to do, but it doesn't take precedence over the other activities that require your attention. Don't you feel that sometimes people tend to just set those things aside for that reason, and then they regret it because there has to be a balance. I mean, I know we have all these responsibilities, but we also have to give our souls some happiness by doing the things that we truly enjoy and we want to fulfill in our lives, don't you think?

Donnalynn Riley : 9:41

I do, I think that there is a fine line between doing that which you should be doing and doing that which you should be doing. Right?

Marisa Huston : 9:50

Yeah!

Donnalynn Riley : 9:51

Meaning that when we're growing up and we're creating families and we're getting bigger jobs, and all of these things, what happens is the focus on self that you have as a child becomes less and less clear, because you have to do for others in a different way than you ever did before. People get very caught up in that path too. And they forget that they exist even. That awareness gets pushed down, push down. And so, I do think that that is sometimes what's happening there. But I also think that your unfinished objects that you talked about a minute ago, we define as tolerances and so a tolerance really is something that you intend to finish. Whether you enjoy it or not, is not in the equation, but something that was supposed to be finished, you wanted to finish it, you were going to finish it, you had an intention, but you stopped in the middle somehow. And a lot of the time those tolerances, they can go a variety of directions. You can let them sit in the garage for so long that you throw them out. That is a real trick. You still have to go and do that. It's not like they're gonna disappear on their own. Which is kind of how we behave. We behave like oh, well, you know, yeah.

Marisa Huston : 11:07

Yeah, maybe if I ignore it enough, miraculously things will just take care of itself.

Donnalynn Riley : 11:12

That's right. And sometimes, like you said, they are things that we wish we were doing. You know, that bicycle that's hanging in the rafters in the garage that I used to love to ride that I didn't get down this year to clean up and get out on the road when the snow melted. Those are ways in which we can be giving up pieces of ourselves. But I think it really does start with being aware of yourself in that sort of really micro way, right? Really finding a practice of tuning in to yourself, and that that really is the place to start with it.

Marisa Huston : 11:46

The other thing that I often see is there is a underlying frustration that causes procrastination and that is because I find again, this is what I've observed. The individual is not comfortable. Maybe there not confident about themselves or they're not comfortable with the process. So let's say they went to IKEA and bought one of those little tables that you have to put together. That may end up sitting in a closet for years, just because they're afraid to open up the box and literally build it following the instructions because they don't believe that either the instructions are clear enough or that they're capable of doing it or maybe they planned on somebody else in the family doing it and then that person decided they were not interested, so then it just gets pushed aside. How do we overcome that frustration or that fear or not having faith in yourself to achieve something because even though we may not be experts at something, I believe that most of the time we can teach ourselves things, especially if you do them gradually.

Donnalynn Riley : 12:47

A lot of times when we talk about awareness, we kind of bundle it up with a few other steps. And so if we unbundle those steps that we kind of push all into that one word awareness, then it takes on a different process. The first part of that process is to literally become aware without judgment, with no judgment to become an observer of your body of your life to just be in that observation stage. There's no judgment. The next part of that process is to assess, right? This is a period where we can say, okay, I have observed by observation is there's tension in my shoulders when I talk about the thing in the closet that I didn't build. And so now we're going to assess what does that mean? Oh, it means that I'm uncomfortable with this process. Now, we're going to get to unbundling it one step at a time. So now you've got awareness, you've got assessment, and hopefully accurate assessment because I will say that's a place where the whole thing can fall apart, and then you can move in to the adaptation or to the action phase, where you say, I'm not willing to do the project, but I am willing to open the closet. And that is the first part of the adaptation. And then you go back to the beginning, how do I feel looking at the closet? That kind of three step process, when you break it down into little tiny chunks that way, then there's a piece in there that allows us to sit with ourselves without judgment, without embarrassment, without worry, to really sit with the feeling and say, huh you're frustration. I recognize you. Okay. What shall we do? A really different things than feeling the frustration and being in the frustration and saying, yes, I'm aware that I'm frustrated, but you're still in it, so you can't get out of it. There's got to be a little bit of separation in there to afford that observation, that awareness.

Marisa Huston : 13:51

And I'm glad you defined that. Like you said. We bundle it up. We all have a definition of what we think awareness is. There's a deeper meaning to it. There's a progression that has to happen within the awareness piece. And that's really important to understand. We don't just jump to I'm aware. Okay, that's good. It's done. We have to then determine what am I feeling? And what are the steps that I need to take and how is that going to help me? How do we address procrastination? What I often find when we're dealing with procrastination is when somebody actually addresses something that they procrastinated on for a really long time, the thing they always say is, why did I wait so long? I should have done this years ago. I can't believe I put this off because now I feel like a weight is lifted and I feel so elevated and happy and I don't know why I put this weight on my shoulder. And that's how they describe it. They describe it as like there's a heavy weight that they've been carrying for so long, and all of a sudden they feel liberated.

Donnalynn Riley : 15:53

I think that there are two reasons for it. I find in working with people, there are feelings that get In a way. It's one step back from I know, I'm frustrated. And so there are feelings to be dealt with there. The simple act of acknowledging those feelings can make a crack in that wall, can make a shift begin to happen in a person. So that's really worth investigating. Also, I think what can happen is that people get stuck because that thing no longer fits in their plan and they can't commit. They have confusion in their mind. You go from this moment of clarity, right? I want to build a shed out back. So I buy all the lumber, I have clarity, and then I find out that I need a part and I go, oh. And then I find out that the guy who approves the permits knows my cousin and they don't get along and now I've got to figure out how to handle this situation. Now there's a point of resistance in the person building the shed. They're going like hmm. I don't want to tick off my cousin and I don't want to not have my shed and I don't know how to move forward. And so now there's a garage full of wood and no shed, and they say to themselves, wait a minute, I have a different idea, and this may take a month, right?

Marisa Huston : 17:13

Oh, it could take way more than a month.

Donnalynn Riley : 17:16

But they say to themselves, wait a minute, I have an extra room in the house, I'm going to do the thing that I was going to do in this shed in the back room. That's what I'm going to. And they don't think about that shed ever again because it represents for them a problem, a point of resistance. Then they say, okay, I don't remember why I wanted it or what I was doing there and I can't move forward. So it's no longer appropriate for them.

Marisa Huston : 17:40

It doesn't apply anymore. I can't even believe I was thinking that!

Donnalynn Riley : 17:44

That's exactly right. Its no longer appropriate, but I don't know how to throw it out. I don't want to say I just bought $200 worth of wood now I'm going to throw it out.

Marisa Huston : 17:52

I can relate so much with this!

Donnalynn Riley : 17:55

Yeah, there are little things that are disappointments that we create in ourselves. Actually, that example affords a really good way to explain it because you did pay for the wood. So now you don't want to feel that you wasted your money and you don't want to feel that you made a bad decision. And so you say, No, no, I'm going to use that. I've got a plan. I don't know what it is yet. Maybe it will show itself in the next 10 years. So getting back to that original moment of the decisions that you did make to stop the project on purpose. You made the decision really. You don't remember that you made the decision but you did. And you said, oh, this is no longer important to me. So getting back to that moment, and seeing it in that light can often really free somebody up to be able to make good decisions about what they're holding on to or what they're giving away inappropriately.

Marisa Huston : 18:49

And speaking of that, I don't necessarily feel that procrastination is all bad. And the reason I say that is because we tend to react emotionally when we make decisions and giving ourselves a little grace to say, let me give myself one week, two weeks, a month. There's a certain period where I can really give some thought to this decision so that when I make it, I feel very comfortable rather than feeling like I'm driven strictly through the emotions. That sometimes has led me to some wonderful paths that I would probably not have taken had I just acted on impulse.

Donnalynn Riley : 19:28

Yeah, absolutely. Finding a considered approach can really be deepen your relationship with yourself surrounding slowing down our awareness so that we don't jump to, oh, I'm aware that I have a problem, therefore, I'm going to fix the problem. Let's just slow it down and say, mmm, I'm aware of what? What is happening this moment.? And that same kind of approach that you're describing quite accurately I think, of I am going to take my time in making this decision, which is important but maybe also just enjoyable, I want to consider all the aspects of it before I say I want to go ahead or I don't want to go ahead or I want to go ahead and this specific direction. And I think that a lot of times people skip over that because they don't think it's supposed to be enjoyable. They think that the manifestation of having the shed built, already done finished is supposed to be the important part. But really, the important part is what kind of wood do I want to buy? What kind of screws am I going to put it together with? Wonder what it'll look like? And so to really enjoy those decisions along the way, and delve into the planning of each moment of your life. Going back to your sewing example, am I going to sew this quilt in a way that it will end up being all one color, even though it's coming from fabrics in it. So getting to really enjoy those moments. It requires us to slow down a little and to reevaluate, to really say, I am willing to value the moments of my life as opposed to simply the acquisitions of my life.

Marisa Huston : 21:10

Yes. And two things came to mind as you were saying that. One is, don't be afraid to switch gears, meaning if we're going to go back to that quilt, let's say you envision you were going to do it in one color, but then you sat on it for a little bit. And then you happen to be looking on the internet or the magazine and you see the possibilities of that quilt being multicolor or a different kind of layout than you ever considered before, all of a sudden, that was a better version than you could have ever imagined and had you gone head first into it right away, you would probably regret it. So sometimes, just taking a step back and giving yourself some space to switch gears a little bit is not necessarily a bad thing. And the other thing that I was thinking of as you were saying that was like, you know as well as I do when you go to a store and you you're about to pay for something, the little aisle there that has all the different candies and magazines and different things, they're there for a reason. Because they know that human beings are very susceptible to emotion, they're likely hungry when they go buy food. So what happens is they're lining up and waiting and they're hungry, so they're gonna grab that little candy bar. And then at the end, because they're acting on impulse, they get angry with themselves. Like I shouldn't have done that! It was just a bar of sugar that I ate, and that wasn't good for me now it ruined my lunch, but I did it on impulse. And so oftentimes, we have to then balance things, don't you think, Donnalynn? Just to say, give yourself some time to really think things through and don't just react on impulse. Think. You need to kind of balance that with your mind and understand exactly what the consequences are of each decision that you make.

Donnalynn Riley : 22:50

I agree. I find that often when people are behaving habitually in a way where they are acting on impulse, often there is something that they wish to forward with in their lives, that they feel they cannot. There is something in their mind that is standing in the way of them and their ability to to move forward on that project. And that can be they're afraid of a judgement that someone will have in their life or they're afraid that it will cost too much money or it can be many, many different things that are standing in the way. But what happens is when you cannot from inside yourself by yourself, figure out how to get past that wall that you know is in front of you, unless you reach out for help in some direction, whether you have a mentor, or you have a friend that you talk to, or a therapists. Whatever you choose to do in that moment, if you don't, if you say okay, there's a wall there, then it starts to kind of seep into other parts of your life. And so the behavior becomes out of balance. Truthfully in order to be able to balance you. So you have to find equilibrium inside yourself and if one part is going very slowly than another part, is typically going very quickly. We live in a world of duality. So if you look at the other end of that stick and you say, okay, well, I'm impulse buying or I'm impulse eating. As the person who's in that situation. If today, you're like, yep, that's me, I do that. Then it is giving you information about the fact that something in your life is going slower than you want it to and that there is something that you can do about that. And that's when we go back to our three step process, of awareness, assessment, and adaptation. Action. So you don't take action on it until you've done the other work.

Marisa Huston : 23:01

For me. One of the things that has always helped is I take a piece of paper and if it's an important decision or something that really matters to me, I write it down. But even if it's not important, I even prioritize. Like I'll do A's, B's and C's. You know what's critical and what can wait a little and the things I'd like to do, but not necessarily that important, they can wait. And then once I put that all down on paper, and I start to attack the areas that I think are really, really important that need to get done right away, I start listing pros and cons. I just put inm alright, so what happens if I don't do this? And what happens if I do? And how can I approach this? Because there's more than one way to approach things, always. And it's not necessarily right or wrong. It's a matter of what is going to be fit for you. There's so many combinations that can happen when you're making a decision, but putting it down for me and seeing it in front of me helps me then connect the dots. And then it helps me visualize, okay, well, given the fact that this might happen, if I go this direction, I'm not happy with that, that's not going to work for me. I think I'm going to head over here. And so it's similar to a workflow but more raw in that sense, just to kind of brainstorm some ideas so that I have a little more confidence in a sense of where I want to go with it.

Donnalynn Riley : 26:00

Yes, I'm very much a list maker. I love to make lists. And I will say that when I'm working something out in my brain, I do often just get a giant piece of paper and put it on the wall because it is easier for me to sort of project on to that piece of paper, my thoughts on how they connect to one another. But I will say that sometimes we get caught up in our logic and our sort of like, yes, this is the logical decision, but I don't know why I don't want to do it anyway. Or even just the logic itself. The activity in the brain feels good until we just keep doing it and we haven't really tapped into our soul, right? We haven't really taken that one step back and really tapped into what does the real inside me want here? And that's where I think a practice comes to play. That if you have in your life, a practice of getting quiet and observing yourself and creating that separation between the you that is inside you, and the you that is your body and your brain, when you create a little bit of space in there, then you're able to sort of have a different perspective on all of that. And so having a practice that does that, often, you can use a breathing practice in that specific way. Or it might be a chanting practice, or some people do it simply by playing tennis or moving their body in a specific way. There are lots and lots of ways that you can accomplish it. But it's really really important that you're able to sort of feel that moment in you so that when you come to the part where you're making your list, and you're in the logical world, that you're able to understand that your brain is only part of it and it isn't the final decision maker on what you're gonna move forward with.

Marisa Huston : 27:56

Donnalynn, would you mind sharing exactly how people get a hold of you and how they learn more about what you do?

Donnalynn Riley : 28:02

My website is my name. So that should make it pretty easy. It's www.donnalynnriley.com. And that is really the best place to get information. There's a blog there. I am always putting out material for free for people, because I really, really want everybody to get this. Typically I work with people who are working on their business. That is the space that I usually work with people in. And so if you're looking to start a business, or you have a business, or you're in business in a position and somebody else's business and you want to get better at it, you want to have better relationships and sort of sharpen yourself there, then there's all sorts of information there that can be of use to you and of course, my email and videos and a way to contact me.

Marisa Huston : 28:53

Donnalynn, thank you so much for sharing this information with us.

Donnalynn Riley : 28:56

It's my pleasure. Thanks.

Marisa Huston : 28:58

That's all for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks for listening and thanks to Donnalynn Riley for being my guest. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/lbovm, or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!