Mental Blocks (1): The Locked Drawer

Most people don’t fail at what they do. They fail at what they never begin.

There is this one step. You know it would move you forward. Maybe you even sense that God is calling you to exactly that place. And yet something in you pulls back. Every time.

What is it that holds you back?

Recognize First, Then Break Free

A block can’t be broken as long as it has no name. Before you fight it, you need to know where it sits. Only then can you push back against it: with concrete steps that lead exactly to the place you have avoided until now.

And then it takes patience. Your inner self is reshaped only through repetition. A muscle doesn’t visibly grow after a single workout either.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Psalm 139:23-24

This prayer is not a pious phrase. It is the beginning of every liberation. Let God look into the chambers of your inner self, even the ones you would rather keep locked.

The Drawer of Experiences

At its core, a block is a pattern that has grown into you over years.

At some point you went through something that hurt. Your inner self remembered that experience and filed the activity behind it away as dangerous. Feeling and judgment go into a drawer: Negative experiences.

This drawer opens every time you face something similar again. Before you even act, the old feeling is already there. The result: You avoid the step so you won’t feel the pain again.

This is how strongholds are built. Not out of stone, but out of memory, feeling and judgment. And it is exactly strongholds like these that spiritual warfare is aimed at.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.”

2 Corinthians 10:4

A Web, Not a Thread

We humans long for the one answer. The one reason, the one wound, the one prayer, and everything is fine.

But usually it is more tangled. There is rarely just one cause behind a block. It is more like a web. The first cause you discover is often only the entrance to a deep rabbit hole. Behind it lies the next one, and behind that, another.

That is why abstract theory helps little. We already spin it endlessly in our loops of thought. What helps is an honest look at a real example.

My Example: The Call

For me, it was calling strangers on the phone. Cold calling.

I didn’t feel like doing it before I had ever made a single call. My inner self knew: There is a good chance pain is waiting there. Rejection, coldness, one no after another.

And yet that wasn’t a solid block yet. That only formed when I actually made the calls and the experience became real.

But don’t they say that if you just do something often enough, the fear goes away?

No. Repetition alone isn’t enough. Only understanding creates distance between what your body feels and the judgment you pass on it. Only when you know the causes, expose them and strip them of their power can repetition truly set you free.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

Galatians 6:9

How to Recognize a Block

Everything begins on the inside. The body’s reaction comes at the very end of the chain. For me, it was deep-seated beliefs that turned phoning into a block in the first place.

That’s why you don’t recognize a block by whether you feel like doing something. Not feeling like it isn’t a block yet. A block shows itself in your body: trembling, stuttering, sweating. Your heart races before anything has even happened.

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”

Psalm 56:3

When you notice these signs in yourself, don’t be ashamed. They are signposts. They show you where the stronghold stands.

In the next part, we go to the roots: Mental Blocks (2): The Sentences That Bind You