Episode 2 Final - Why the Same Problems Keep Showing Up in Your Life
===
[00:00:00]
Welcome to the Starlit Success Podcast. I am your host, Jessica Gaines, and you are listening to episode number two. So we are gonna talk today about, six ways your obstacles are actually serving you. We all face obstacles. In life, and I actually looked up the definition of obstacle and it is a thing that blocks one's way or prevents or hinders progress.
Some examples , of an obstacle would be, an injury. So that sidelines you a difficult or broken relationship, the loss of a loved one or maybe , the loss of [00:01:00] a friendship. Maybe you're stuck in a dead end job. And the list goes on, right? We face so many obstacles in life, really, those are just a handful.
But we've all been there. Life puts. Something in the way, and it just feels impossible to get around. But really if you think about it, what if those obstacles are actually working for you and not against you? If I hadn't. Faced my obstacle, my big obstacle of finding my purpose and finding out what I was actually meant to do.
I wouldn't be here, I wouldn't be doing something that I absolutely love and that lights me up. So I am extremely grateful for that obstacle. Had that not happened, I would just be doing what I've always done and who knows, who knows what. So I think one of the biggest [00:02:00] problems, or one of the biggest, mistakes that people fall into is.
Just getting stuck inside the problem. Like whatever that issue is or whatever that obstacle is, it's they just replay the situation over and over. They focus on the actual obstacle itself and maybe they think of, Ugh, I should have did this, or I could have done that. Or maybe they're looking for someone to blame.
Maybe they want. To hold someone accountable besides themself for the issue that took place. Maybe they just wanna feel sorry for themselves. Maybe it's, woe is me and life always just happened. This is just my luck and poor pitiful me. And we can all relate to that feeling at one point or another.
Another issue [00:03:00] is maybe you just spiral in frustration. You're just so angry about the obstacle and you just are constantly complaining about it and replaying it over and over in your head, and it's like, what, what is the purpose of that?
What are you getting from that? How is that helping you? It's natural to feel. Some sort of emotion. When life throws obstacles at you, you're human. But the mistake is really when you're just handing your power over to the problem and letting it define you, that's when you just fall into this victim mode.
The thing is, it's like when you're in victim mode, when you act like you have no control over the problem itself, you, you get stuck there. There's no growth inside the problem. You're missing what I would consider the hidden gift [00:04:00] inside the obstacle. So instead of learning, you complain, instead of growing, you just settle and instead of moving forward, you just get stuck.
And really the truth is comfort can keep you stuck. If you were always happy and comfortable, , you would never change. Growth always happens outside your comfort zone. And for me, I feel like it's usually and obstacle of some sort or some sort of uncomfortable situation that you're facing.
And I believe that. Whatever obstacles you're facing in life, I look at it like that was meant for you, God, the universe source, I believe, I personally believe in all of it. I feel like the names are interchangeable. A higher power is arranging these obstacles for you, and [00:05:00] the problem is that.
You're so stuck inside of the problem that you don't even see why this is happening for you or how you could grow from it. What is it actually teaching you? Where is it? Is it redirecting you somewhere? Is there a pattern? So I'm gonna use a couple examples. My oldest son, he is, he's a senior now in high school.
And last year he faced an injury and it took him out of basketball and it was his first year on varsity and he was extremely distraught, that injury. I feel was a manifestation of what he was going through internally,. and that's probably another episode I could probably go on and on about that. , How your external world is really a reflection of what's going on [00:06:00] internally and that injury, I feel now why that happened was for him to really.
Dive deep and do some of his own internal healing. And I feel like that happened for him so that he could take that time for himself to focus on what truly mattered and not focus on that external satisfaction or recognition of what basketball gave him. Because I truly feel like. All happiness and fulfillment happens from within.
You can't attach your own self-worth to anything externally. So you know if you are finding your worthiness from a sport or from your business or from a relationship. You are doing yourself a disservice because [00:07:00] if anything happens to that external thing, what happens to your self worthiness or yourself, your happiness, it's gone.
You're dependent on that. So I'm going on a little bit of a tangent here, but my point was that happened for him so that he had that time. For himself to work on what truly mattered. And I'll go to another event. Actually, I'm gonna use him, uh, you're probably gonna hear about my kids a lot.
But there was another, situation where he was working a job and Basketball was interfering with his hours. If you're a basketball family you know that basketball or any kind of sport is extremely demanding with your time. And it's really hard for jobs to, to work around these kids' schedules.
They've got practices and open gyms and tournaments and all kinds of stuff that's going on. And as far as the basketball world, it never really stops. You go open gyms [00:08:00] and you got a fall league and scrimmages, and then you got your real season in the winter, and then you've got a a u in the spring and then you've got your high school summer league.
It's like nonstop. So his job like started giving him less and less hours. And eventually he is just off the schedule and I'm like, Jay, what's going on? Are you, do you work there anymore? What's up? And he, you can tell, like it was really upsetting to him, and he's like, I don't know what's going on.
Like, you could see it was really, it was really bugging him. And you could see that he felt a sense of lack. He's not getting money. He doesn't feel useful. And here me, miss positive Patty, miss self-development here to remind you this is happening for a reason. You are not meant to work there.
Maybe you're not meant to have, a standard job period. And it's funny how the universe works. So my youngest, My little [00:09:00] 12-year-old entrepreneur had been talking about wanting to start a car detailing business, and me knowing, I'm like, oh God, this sounds like work. I'm gonna have to do, you're setting me up, dude.
I don't wanna, I don't wanna have to drive you around. It just sounds like a, a lot of work for mom and dad. And I'm like, oh my God. Javen, he's 16. He's got a car he can drive. He's not getting any hours. Perfect. Per, like, the stars on the moons aligned. And I'm like, why don't you ask Jayen if he wants to get into it with you?
Boom. What do you know? Magic. We have Zanden in the visionary. That was he had the idea. We got Javen, the integrator. And what do you know? Javen is actually going to school for digital design and marketing. Huh? How perfect is that? He is the one that can get it off the ground with all of his marketing and social media [00:10:00] skills and design work, and you got Zanden, who's like a master at research and, figuring out what products you need and equipment to use and whatnot.
So Javen's obstacle. Of basically losing his job in so many words, was the start of building their own business. They started their own business at 12 and 16 years old. He could have sat there and said, oh, I'm gonna just look for another job. And then what, what the same thing's probably gonna happen.
They need to schedule you just the same as this other job did. The reason you lost this one is probably gonna be the same thing that's gonna happen with another company. So why not look outside the box and figure out how this obstacle was specifically designed for you? The common theme here is.
Success. Many [00:11:00] successes don't exist without some kind of struggle that forced the change. So my struggle with finding my purpose and what it is I was meant here to do, I so I had, I had obstacle after obstacle, after obstacle after obstacle. So I went from working a job for almost 10 years to going to this new company, this giant conglomerate that didn't give a crap about people to then going to another job that I just felt completely out of alignment with to then going to another job that really wasn't valuing what I could offer and.
I could have just complained and continued to complain, and why is this happening to me? And there's nothing great out there and you know, a job is a job and just kind of get stuck in this spiral of, [00:12:00] negativity and pity for myself. But no, I'm like, you know what? Sometimes you can actually find patterns and obstacles too, like are you facing the same obstacle over and over again?
So my son, what do you know, a few days ago he gets injured at basketball practice. So now he is, he was healed from the last injury. He was playing AU all summer, like everything was good and now he's back into high school league and they're just having like open gyms and practices and whatnot. It's like day two of school and he hurts his knee and it's like some fluke injury.
Like he was at practice and he was just cutting, if you know what that means, like change in directions. No contact. He didn't fall, nobody hit him. His knee just popped. And it's like, okay, well that's random. Like your knee just pops outta nowhere, just doing a normal move. And we're sitting in urgent [00:13:00] care and he knows how I am miss Spiritual, and I'm like, okay, Jay, why do you think this is happening?
What is this teaching you? How is this helping you grow? What can you learn from this? And he, it's like he knew, I was gonna ask that question and he was like, I've been feeling really overwhelmed lately with, school just starting. He is a senior this year, so he's applying for this national honor society, which require, there's a lot of different requirements that he has to.
Do like letters and, he has to remember all these different awards that he's gotten over the years and he's gotta figure out like, how to apply for scholarships and how to apply for colleges. And he's got these new higher level classes that he is really trying to take seriously because obviously college is next year, so he wants his transcript to look as good as possible.
He's just, he puts a lot of pressure on himself and. Now with the injury. Now you don't have practice [00:14:00] anymore. Or at least for the time being while you're injured. And thankfully it was not a severe injury. It was so there's no breaks. There's no tears. We haven't seen ortho yet. So knock on wood, but to me it's okay, so God, the universe, they didn't want you to give up.
Basketball this year. They just want you to slow down. They just want you to take it easy. He was getting up at 6:00 AM no 5:00 AM He gotta be at school by seven. So he was getting to school an hour early every day to shoot. And then he goes to school all day and then he would come home and maybe have a snack or something, and then he'd go back to school for two hours.
For basketball. And then he'd come home and probably eat, and then he'd go to the gym and work out and he's just like, you know, basketball, basketball, basketball and he's also trying to put this heavy focus on [00:15:00] college and, okay, now this injury is telling you, rest your body. Take some time away.
And focus on the college stuff right now. And if, if you think about it, I mean, this is really crunch time for college. It's September at the time of recording this. College applications, scholarships. A lot of those deadlines are fall. Like you have to have your application in by November 1st to be considered for the early, to get more financial aid and whatnot.
So it's best to get in early. It's probably better that this injury happened. Now when you can really focus on that stuff and it's early enough to where you can, he can actually pursue the season. The season doesn't start until December. So sometimes in life, a storm doesn't necessarily come to destroy you.
Maybe it's just there to just clear a way. [00:16:00] What no longer serves you or what no longer serves you at that time. I've always used this phrase, there can't be a rainbow without a little rain. And I think sometimes obstacles really can show you what you're truly meant for. Like in my case.
It's opened up so many possibilities that I'm actually now pursuing, and they're not here to break you, I feel like they're really here to build you.
So one. They can reveal your greater purpose. And I actually have one more story on my son. So he's had the injuries and he also, He had a friend who committed suicide a few months ago, and that broke him. He could barely get outta bed. He could barely make it [00:17:00] to school.
He was extremely depressed, as you can imagine, if you've ever been through something like that. It was a really hard time. It was hard, hard seeing him like that. It was just hard seeing all of the kids and thinking about his mom and, just everything , the way , that pain just spiderwebs through the community.
And what I've learned, as I've been saying, what can you learn? How can you grow, how can you turn something so, so terrible and make it. A positive experience, like how could you even do that? And most people probably wouldn't. They would probably just be sad and cry a lot. And why does this happening to me?
And look for all of the ways that this. Has broken them or will continue to break them. [00:18:00] And I asked him, what if you started something where you could help other kids grieve through this process? What if you could help other kids that are struggling with maybe some of the same struggles that he had?
What if you created like a mental health group? And initially I thought that was something that I would help him with, that I would help lead with him to give him that sense of purpose and meaning, like there has to be some meaning in this somewhere. And he ran with it. He completely ran with that idea and went to his principal and went to his counselors and has now successfully ran this.
It's called Bridge to Brighter, and it's a mental health group and it's student led. He's got, I think, five. Five other members on his board, they host monthly meetings. They've got social media [00:19:00] posts with, inspirational messages and mental health awareness. They organize different walks. I mean, This tragic event brought him so much purpose and now he is able, and the other kids along with him are able to help all of these other kids that are.
Potentially facing the same struggles that his friend did. So your obstacles can be a stepping stone to something much, much bigger than yourself. Another way that they can actually help you is by making you resourceful or making you. Creative, I always think about like a teenager.
I have a 12-year-old and a 17-year-old. And my friends have teenage kids too. And I'm telling you, these kids, boy, they love to make plans or they think they like to make plans [00:20:00] even though , some of them aren't driving quite yet. Like my 12-year-old loves to do that.
Let's say you say no. To something. So that's their obstacle, right? Oh, they get very creative. They will figure out a way to make something happen. And I'm sure you've been there in your life too, where, you can't do something, something's not working. Okay. How else can I figure this out?
I'm one of those people , I gotta figure it out. If. I see something in my way. Okay, what's another way I could try it? They open your mind to , other opportunities and different ways of going about things. So
keep that in mind. Okay? , Another thing, obstacles help you get clear on what you don't want.
For example, in my case, if I'm running into obstacle after obstacle with these jobs that are just not aligned for me, that's teaching me what I don't [00:21:00] want. What do I want? I've realized I want to help others find their purpose and their happiness and go after their dream life.
My son has faced now more than one injury, an obstacle with his job. He now knows he doesn't want to work for someone else. He wants to work for himself. What obstacle have you run into where you realize? Something about it that is moving you away from what you don't want and moving you toward what you do want.
Are you in relationships that are just not working out? Are you getting into the same toxic relationship over and over? Okay, look at that. Where's the pattern there? How is that moving you toward what you do want? What about those relationships do you not like that are not working for you? So you can identify what it is that will.
So that was [00:22:00] three. So now we're onto number four. Another way obstacles are actually serving you is by building emotional and mental strength, confidence and resilience. How do you feel like I, I feel so much better when you can overcome an obstacle that you felt at the time was just. In your way, no way of getting around it.
You maybe you got stuck for a minute, but you actually figured out a way to get through it or move around it. How do you feel about yourself after that? You've gotta feel good. It builds that sense of accomplishment and resilience. I can do anything. What's a saying?
No pain, no gain. You have to grow. Through what you go through. I've seen, I saw that somewhere and I really liked it, but I, it's so true. Okay. Fifth one. 1, 2, 3, 4. Okay, we're on number five. So they protect you from harm [00:23:00] or paths that are not meant for you.
I always, like my husband probably gets annoyed with me, but if we're driving, and this is a minor example, but it happens, I'm sure enough where most of you can relate when you're driving and you're stuck behind that driver that's like taking their Sunday cruise and they're going like 20 miles an hour and you're like, oh my God, I just wanna get to where I'm going.
Can you move? And I'm like, honey. That is God or the universe's way of protecting us. It's protecting us from harm. You never know, or maybe it's taking us, maybe there's a road that's closed and you have to take a completely different route. Maybe there was gonna be an accident somewhere along that route.
Maybe you were being protected from that. Another way, an obstacle can help you is just by teaching [00:24:00] you gratitude and helping you appreciate what truly matters,
think about COVID. God, when everything shut down and we couldn't go to work anymore. Kids couldn't go to school. We couldn't hang out with our friends or our family. How much gratitude did you have in that moment and how appreciative were you of what actually, or what truly mattered?
I know I was. I was like, oh my God, I didn't know how much. I took for granted and how thankful I was to have my family and have a home, that I felt was our refuge. And I don't know that we would've all had that. I had that experience not took place. So whatever that means for you, when facing an obstacle, what is it about that?
That is teaching you what you should truly be thankful for. You know, When my son was injured? Yeah, [00:25:00] okay. He had a minor injury to his ankle and his knee, but you've got your health, overall that's all that truly matters and I've mentioned this before, but you cannot place so much value on these external things for your own happiness, and sometimes these obstacles have to shake you up to remind you of them.
So, okay, how? How can you shift the way you see your obstacles? So as I've mentioned earlier, instead of asking, why is this happening to me, ask. Why is this happening for me? Move away from the problem. Stop circling that what happened, or who's to blame or whatever it is. Whatever negativity you wanna focus on and look at what's next, how can you move past it?
How can you get out of the [00:26:00] problem and into the solution? What could this be making space for? My son's recent injury that's making space for him to focus on college and all of the different requirements that he has to fulfill within such a short timeline.
Look at the patterns, are there patterns in your obstacles? Are they redirecting me? Am I facing a similar obstacle? Over and over again. Sometimes God, the universe, is higher power will present obstacles over and over to you until you learn from them.
And if you're seeing a pattern, it's likely happening for a reason. I know I had a pattern. I had what? Three unhappy jobs back to back. And it's like, okay, am I supposed to just get a new job? Probably not. This keeps happening for a reason. I'm being redirected.
But it took me paying [00:27:00] attention to get that. And not everybody really is aware or conscious enough to see that, how can you grow, how can you improve from this? If you were to pretend that you had full control over this obstacle, let's say that you designed this obstacle.
Pretend that you are actually responsible for it. What would happen if you took full ownership of it? And you don't always have control of problems that happen to you, but it is your responsibility. To decide how you're going to respond to it. So think about how you can take responsibility for it and take ownership and move it in the direction that you want.
So when you do that, when you make these shifts, you can transform trials into triumphs, pain, into purpose. You change from being [00:28:00] a victim. To eVic, and sometimes rejection is just redirection. You just have to reframe it that way. So I want you, here's your challenge for this week.
Think about the biggest obstacle in your life right now and write it down, and then reframe it and ask yourself, how is this happening for me? What can I do about this? How can I turn this into a positive? How can I grow from this? When you start looking at life from this way, obstacles stop being roadblocks and they start actually , becoming stepping stones.
So next time you hit a roadblock, ask yourself, what if this is the universe's way of saying. You're made for more, obstacles are not stop signs, [00:29:00] they're redirection signs, and just, lean in and get curious and just trust that this challenge has something really powerful to teach you. So thank you
I hope this helped. I hope you learned something from this. Please let me know if you have any questions. I'm happy to help answer them. I'd love to hear from you. So thank you for spending your time with me and your energy, and I look forward to seeing you on future episodes.
