DO YOU EVER FEEL TRAPPED?
We often create our own prisons. Slowly constructing the walls that bind us in. It’s all too easy to spend years creating the walls of our prison without even realizing it. Trapped in a cycle of poor habits, an unsatisfying relationship, an unrewarding job or even as much as an unfulfilling life.
What started out as harmless or a good idea, slowly became a set of circumstances that now deprives us of freedom and independence. Freedom to think and feel and experience a more fulfilling life. Free from poor habits, bad decisions, unsatisfying relationship, unrewarding career or tedious life. We long to be liberated from these paradigms, yet we struggle to find the courage and the strategy to find our way out.
A gilded cage is when we live in some level of luxury, yet without true freedom. A person enjoying drugs who has a place to live and money from family, yet is enslaved by a debilitating addiction. The unhappy spouse who “has it all”; home, kids, stable money, health, and yet feels deprived of love, romance and intimacy. The successful professional who feels like they are not living for work but working to live. The lonely person who seeks comfort in food or sex or other self-deprecating behaviors.
Just because we have a “good life” doesn’t mean we can’t be unhappy and desire to change. In my work, I see people suffer within their gilded cages all the time. It’s painful to see them feeling trapped.
But… it’s so rewarding to help them set themselves free. As a life-coach, it is a joy to help others find the truth about themselves and then assist in building real strategies to become free. Meeting someone who’s lost is sad, but witnessing their catharsis is why I got into this field. It is inspiring to inspire, liberating to liberate, thrilling to see people find their passions and discover their dreams can and do come true. Yes, it takes hard work, sometimes tears, courage and even some confusion along the way. But in the end it’s all worth it.
A client I spoke to this morning put it very well:
“I’ve realized life is short and fragile. I simply know I don’t want to live the way I’ve been any longer. It’s time to change.”
Scott Spackey is a Certified Life-Coach, Clinical Hypnotherapist, State Certified Counselor and Interventionist.
