Did you ever feel stuck? Stuck in a job you don’t like, or a living situation that’s difficult, perhaps even stuck in your own patterns or addictions. It can be a very depressing and draining feeling. Being in a stagnant or damaged love relationship can be especially painful and draining. Perhaps you’re there now, still on the same boat stuck and merely paddling in circles.

Relationships with others may bring us our greatest joys, and yet often our deepest frustration and sorrow as well. I’ve come to realize many of us have a small kernel left over from childhood that truly believed we didn’t deserve good things. Or that if we found happiness or success it wouldn’t last. These old paradigms of unworthiness and fear tether us to these broken places. They are the anchor we toss overboard that keeps us paddling round and round in the same place.

I believe we often bring in or create relationships from places of unworthiness and lack of self love. Then, as we learn to self examine and evolve, the other participants in our relationships often continue to see the shadow of who we were superimposed over who we are. The relationships we created from that place of unworthiness usually aren’t evolving as we are. It may be that the other participants in these relationships don’t see a need to evolve, or they may resist because of fear.

All too often we truly don’t know how to totally let go. To say: “I’m finished with the ride. I’m getting off the boat and continuing on on a different path because we both deserve better. I wish you well and bless you on your path.” So we keep paddling like mad and frustrated because we never get too far from where we’ve dropped that anchor of self-judgment, doubt, unworthiness or fear.

Perhaps it’s time we take a closer look at what these relationships really offer us. Are we growing and learning here? Is the love or commitment we give and receive beneficial, or has it become sullied by bitterness and regret? What do we offer the one we are in relationship with: our best self, or a fragment of ourselves distorted by the lens of dysfunction and inauthenticity? Today I am going to start peeling behind the mask of who I am in my most troubled relationships to the real me underneath. I’m going to dive deeper into the unpleasant parts, the deep end where my own faults and failures lurk beneath the surface. I am going to surrender.

In doing so, I hope to shift the energy from a place of fearful clinging to lovingly letting go. In so doing, true authentic God love may just find a way to flourish and bring restoration. Or perhaps a peace and acceptance of moving on. Whatever the outcome, growth and moving forward are just beyond the horizon. So, I’m working to pull up anchor, take an oar, and start paddling onward to whatever lies ahead. Join me. Let go, even a little bit, of the things that hold you captive. May the wind be always at our back, and may we be able to stand on faith that smoother seas are ahead, and the journey will unfold beautifully for us all.