It is exceptionally challenging to maintain a connection to your wholeness, authenticity, and choice, living in our current systems that promote fear, prejudice, scarcity and individualism. Amidst conditioning from such systems, you long to be able to choose that which truly supports thriving for all. Sometimes this means working to change systems and sometimes this means examining your inner world and freeing yourself from thoughts that reinforce such conditioning. 

In attending to your inner world, the thought “I feel trapped” can be heard with compassion as a longing to live in a world that supports wholeness and equity for all. It can also be a reminder that you are losing clarity about your choices and which ones you can access the agency to act on. The thought that you are trapped often comes with a whole constellation of symptoms such as: 

• complaining that you have to much to do

• feeling deflated or angry

• sudden loss of energy or chronic low energy and motivation

• avoiding particular people and situations

• playing small in life so others don't ask too much of you

• not returning messages because you don't want to say no

• saying "yes" to please others, gain approval or love, or to avoid guilt

Let’s briefly look at two types of reactivity that might be active when these symptoms are showing up.

1. Guilt & Shame: 

If guilt and shame were a part of your life growing up, you may have connected your self worth to what you do and don't do for others. In other words, a core belief might be operating in you that says something like, “I am only good if…” or “I am only good if I work x number of hours and achieve x things and my life looks like x.” This kind of belief and thinking has you in an exhausting race to continually prove yourself. You can start to unravel this conditioning by clearly identifying the standards you are comparing yourself to and then reflect on key questions like: What do I need to grieve? What are my deepest longings? What values do I want my life to reflect? What makes my heart sing?  

2. Somebody has to compromise/there is not enough:

Our monetary system is a system that creates inequity, and a few people’s needs and desires are fulfilled at the cost of many others. It follows then that we become convinced that there is not enough and some have to win while others lose. We believe that what we see around us is how it has to be. 

In your personal life this might show up when you can't see a way for the others’ needs to be met along with your own. You then have the thought “I am trapped” or “I feel trapped.” When we believe we are trapped our animal bodies turn toward fight, freeze, or flee. At a more everyday level this looks like shouting and making demands, giving in and going along, or withdrawing/avoiding. In such moments, it’s helpful to engage regulation strategies, receive empathy, and ask empowering questions like:

• How could I think about this with more creativity?

• What I am attached to that’s really not that important?

• What is really most important to me about this?

• What is really most important to the other person about this?

When a sense of what matters most to each person is named and honored with care, creative strategies often begin to present themselves. And sometimes, with connection, your heart shifts and you are surprised at what suddenly seems possible.

Practice

Take a moment now to recall a moment when you had a sense of being trapped. Breath in, recalling the pain and angst. Breathe out compassion for yourself and all those who are systematically denied support for their choice and agency. Breathe in, allowing grief. Breathe out, envisioning an expansive field of support, creativity, and choice.