Stuck?

We are responsible for where we are in life, but if we don’t like where we are, does that mean we’re condemned to stay there? Are we also condemned to constantly do penance for where we are? Absolutely not. …

Often what keeps us stuck and continually doing penance is the very feeling that we must pay for our lack of action. We become caught in a circle of self-blame, condemn ourselves, feel hopeless, and feed the fire—or slow burn—by reciting like a mantra our history of inertia and self-judged wrong choices. Well, let’s break that dead-end cycle of waste and regret.

What’s the choice? It’s to stop the incessant self-judgments and accept ourselves on a new basis—to accept that every moment of our lives has been part of an all-encompassing Purpose, and that this Purpose proceeds by divine order.

When you acknowledge the workings of divine order, you see your life not as a consummate failure but as an evolving, orderly progression. Even though we may not see the purpose of each event, meeting or happening at a given moment, each piece fits.

Become freer from the self-defeating thoughts and labels that have kept you down. You’ll start to shed your old habits of negating yourself and ease gently into the splendid clothes of deserving. In these new clothes, which are much more than zipper-deep, you’ll begin to blossom and develop your talents and abilities, as you’ve always secretly known you could.

—Paraphrase from

UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLES: WHAT THEY’RE ALL ABOUT

By Noelle Sterne, Ph.D.