The Powerful Truth About Why Her Business Feels Stuck

Not every client session ends with a breakthrough. Sometimes, what emerges is a mirror so clearly reflective, it can only be received in layers. That’s what happened with one of my clients this week—let’s call her Madison—as she wrestled with tension in her business and growing frustration with both her employee and her small number of customers.

Madison runs an emerging, but very real, small business. She has four paying clients, and more showing interest. From where I sit, it’s happening. The momentum is building. But from where Madison stood in our recent session, all she could see was how much wasn’t happening.

She felt burdened. Not just by the challenges of running the business, but by the belief that she had to do more to make it succeed. She thought she needed her employee— Jane (whose experience I wrote about previously) — to match that “doing” energy. More outreach. More follow-through. Increased visible hustle. But Jane wasn’t responding to those cues. And Madison was taking it personally.

She was also taking it out on her customers—grumbling about their quirks, dismissing their contributions, struggling to feel grateful for the very signs that her dream was taking root.

Pushing doesn’t help

At the heart of it all was pressure. Not pressure from her partner Tim, who’s funding the business. But from the version of Tim Madison carries in her. No one exists in our reality but us. Everyone else who seems to be there are versions of those people we create. We create them through thoughts and beliefs we have about that person.

This is something I share with clients over and over. It’s hard to get, until the client receives Universal evidence proving it’s accurate. Then the game changes. But for Madison, she hasn’t fully let that accuracy sink in. So she’s not trying to change her beliefs about her partner.

I know Tim isn’t hovering over her, demanding performance. I know this because he’s a client too and we’ve spoken many times about this. But Madison’s version of Tim is demanding. That internalized voice keeps saying: “You need to prove this is working. You need to get bigger, faster. You need to do more. It’s MY money after all!”

So she pushes. And when the business didn’t respond to the push, she got angry. Not just at the business, not just at Jane, but at herself as well.

Our session wasn’t about resolving that anger. It was about revealing it. Naming it. Making space for what was really going on.

Feeling stuck

“There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with your business. There’s nothing wrong with Jane,” I told her. “It’s just a bunch of distortion that you’re telling yourself, and then you’re feeling shitty because you’re in the distortion.”

She heard that. Not with ease, but with recognition. Her head nodded even as her body resisted and remained stiff. Because deep down, she knows what’s so: She’s not failing. She’s just running with her old belief momentum. The one that says success comes from effort, not alignment. From force, not flow, not letting go.

But the business she’s building can’t be grown from that energy. It’s asking her to trust. To appreciate. To be, not just do. And Jane—by not cooperating with the push—is reflecting that truth beautifully. Not out of defiance. But out of resonance. She’s mirroring back exactly where Madeline is stuck: in the doing.

“You’re in a good place,” I told Madison. “…we can talk about this next week and the week after, if you want to. If that’s what it’s gonna take to get you to let go of the doing and lean into the being — and also lean into the appreciation of the four customers you have and the revenue they’ve provided, no matter how small.”

Madeline left that session still feeling stuck. Still frustrated. But with something new: a clearer view of what was really going on. And that clarity, even if uncomfortable, was the invitation.

It’s no surprise then when one of the four customers she had disparaged for “ghosting” her, actually showed up eager to take the next steps because they need exactly what Madeline is offering!

Letting go

This is how real transformation often unfolds—not in grand moments of release, but in quiet reckonings. In honest reflections. In the willingness to stay with ourselves even when we don’t feel resolved.

So if you’re pushing and nothing’s moving…If you’re trying to “make it happen” and the universe seems to be ignoring you…Pause.

What if the stuckness is sacred? What if the resistance is your business—or your life—asking you to be with it, not bulldoze it?

The Positively Focused path isn’t about doing more. It’s about aligning more deeply, letting go, then letting inspired action emerge naturally. That’s not always easy. But it’s always true.

Madeline is learning that. And if you’re here, maybe you are too.