One of the great joys of my professional life has been watching people find their way forward. Over the years, I've come to appreciate how universal the experience of feeling stuck is. Addiction, depression, debt, illness, painful relationships, or years of accumulated problems may all lead us there. The circumstances differ, but the experience is remarkably similar: we don't know how to move forward. It's a feeling that, sooner or later, all of us encounter.
If there is one theme that runs through almost every instance of getting unstuck, it is showing up. We often think we need clarity before we can act. But when we are truly stuck, the problem is often that the clarity we are looking for– about how to move forward– does not exist yet. We can know that something is not working without knowing what will work instead. The path becomes clearer through engagement. Simply showing up—even without knowing exactly what we're doing—creates the conditions for the next step to reveal itself.
Part of what is challenging is that we want to see the path forward. We want to understand what the plan is, what the steps are that we need to follow to get from here to there– but often the steps are not clear, and the path forward is not illuminated. Even trickier, when we do see all the steps, all the work, it is often so overwhelming that we become paralyzed, too discouraged to even start.
But, we do not need to see the whole path, or commit to doing all the things in order to show up and begin. It may be better not to– that’s too much. Perhaps the job isn't to have clarity, know every step, or do everything at once. Perhaps the job is simply to show up for what is directly in front of us: the next appointment, the next walk, the next difficult conversation. Progress often arrives disguised as consistency. It is only after we have taken the first step that the second one becomes clear, and only after the second step does the third one appear.
This requires a kind of faith that can be difficult to find. We have to trust that a path forward exists, even when we cannot see it. This is particularly difficult when we feel stuck, because being stuck often narrows our sense of possibility. The future feels uncertain, and our ability to believe that things can change is diminished. It is in these moments that we most need faith in the way forward, faith is hardest to come by.
Our lived experience of change is rarely one of "showing up." Instead, the stories we tell ourselves are about the specific things we did: I started going to the gym. I saw a therapist and gained new insight. I worked hard and got out of debt. We naturally credit the activity itself, rather than the deeper process of consistently showing up for something over time. In doing so, we miss the more general lesson. Health, relationships, finances, recovery, and happiness all involve different actions, but they share a remarkably similar underlying process: repeatedly engaging with the reality in front of us. When we mistake the activity for the lesson, each new challenge feels like starting over, rather than another opportunity to practice the same skill in a different context.
When we mistake the vehicle for the mechanism, every new challenge requires us to rediscover our faith. We trust that consistently exercising will improve our health because we've seen it happen. But it is harder to believe that the same steady engagement can transform a marriage, a career, or our finances. Recognizing the underlying process reminds us that we are not beginning from nothing. We do not need blind faith; we are applying a practice that has already changed our lives before.
Another challenge is that the benefits of showing up tend to compound rather than accumulate. Early on, the changes are almost imperceptible. Debt still feels overwhelming. Relationships still feel strained. The distance between where we are and where we hope to be hardly seems to shrink. Then, gradually, the small gains begin building on one another until progress that once seemed invisible becomes undeniable. Even then, when changes are significant, they can be hard to see, because change happens slowly. Today is similar to yesterday and tomorrow. It's often only when we step back, and reflect on change over a month or a year that the magnitude of movement becomes clear.
Showing up does not always feel like progress. In fact, it can feel exactly like being stuck. The difference is that feeling stuck and being stuck are not the same thing. When we are paying attention, engaging honestly with reality, and allowing ourselves to learn, we are already moving, even if we cannot yet perceive it. Showing up is not simply repeating a behavior. It is bringing ourselves more fully into the life we are living, about engaging. Therapy without vulnerability isn't showing up. Time with a partner without presence isn't showing up. Showing up is the practice of becoming more engaged with reality. It can take many forms: exercise, vulnerability, difficult conversations, no longer hiding. Each is its own way of moving toward the difficulty instead of away from it.
Showing up, in this context, means moving toward greater engagement with our own life. Some of us begin from a place of deep disengagement—substance use is one example—and some of us are already quite present. The starting point is less important than the direction. Are we becoming a little more attentive? A little more honest? A little more willing to engage with what is in front of us? That movement itself is progress, even before our circumstances begin to change. It requires a kind of faith—not that everything will work out as we hope, but that choosing to engage with our lives is worthwhile even before we can see where it leads.
Perhaps that's why this lesson has become so important to me. So many of the problems we face, whether addiction, loneliness, debt, or illness, pull us away from our own lives. They encourage avoidance, numbness, distraction, and withdrawal. Showing up, in all of its forms, asks something different. It asks us to come back. It asks us to trust that there is something on the other side of re-engagement, even when we cannot yet see it. Perhaps the antidote to paralysis is not a plan, but deciding to show up.
Love,
Doc
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