043 - Pain with a Purpose - Moving From Stuck to Free

Welcome to The Fully Lived Life podcast! A podcast for those who are longing to pursue the full life and want to break free from anything that holds them back. Listen in as two friends - a psychologist, Dr. Merry, and a life coach, Gillian - talk about life, love, and purpose - with wisdom, humor, and transparency -  through the lens of science, psychology, and life experiences.

What:

In today’s episode, we jump into a discussion on Henry Cloud’s book “Necessary Endings”. Do we experience the necessary pain that moves us towards growth or pain that serves no other purpose than to keep us stuck and defeated?

Is our pain helping us to make changes or keep us stuck? The pain we choose to endure to help us grow is good pain. On the other hand, the pain of misery is the pain that we endure that goes nowhere. This is the pain that is unrelenting and provides no hope for us.

Are you feeling pain? Are you feeling hopeless and stuck? How we feel now is not how we will feel forever if we choose to make healthy changes.

So What:

In previous episodes, we have referred to the “external locus of control vs. our internal locus of control”. In this time of COVID, we will need to examine what we can control and change even when life is happening to us in unprecedented ways.

Dr. Merry walks us through the internal maps that Dr. Henry Cloud refers to that keep us stuck.

1. Do you have an abnormally high pain threshold?
   
2. Are you covering for others?
   
3. Are you believing that ending something means that you have failed?
   
4. Misunderstood loyalty?
   
5. Codependent mapping?
   

Now What:

Therapeutic response:

Take a sheet of paper and make 4 columns

• 1 - list the problem in column 1
  
• 2 - list all the feelings associated with this column in column 2
  
• 3 - list off the things in this problem that you have control over in column 3
  
• 4 - what action could you take to move towards health growth in column 4
  

Life Coaching response:

In what area of desired change in your life are you stuck in the movement phase. In other words, you are doing a lot of thinking, mulling over the situation and maybe researching and talking about it but that’s where it stays.

Move to the action phase - Action is when you take a step of action to create change.

Commit to taking that action step over the next week.

Links:

Dr. Merry’s book: https://amzn.to/2rCrJyI

Dr. Merry’s videos: https://bit.ly/377eFR0

Dr. Merry’s website: https://drmerry.com

Dr. Lin & Associates: http://drlinandassociates.com

Gillian’s Website: https://gillianmcshane.com

Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: https://amzn.to/3m2Fo8S