The Competing Desires Gridlock: Why We Stay Stuck & How To Get Unstuck

In this episode Jojo explores the intricate relationship between fear, competing desires, and personal growth. She discusses how our internal struggles can manifest as external obstacles, preventing us from achieving our true desires. Through personal anecdotes and relatable examples, Jojo encourages listeners to confront their fears, identify what blocks them, and take actionable steps towards aligning their lives with their core desires. The conversation emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the courage to make necessary changes, using modern spirituality, for a fulfilling life.

Book Recommendation: FEAR IS NOT AN OPTION by Monica Berg

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Transcript

Jojo (00:07.15)
Welcome to the Inside Out Podcast. I'm your host JoJo and this is where we will navigate the mess together. That is mental, emotional and spiritual. Let's get messy.

Jojo (00:27.214)
Happy Wednesday, everyone. Welcome back to Inside Out. Hope you're having a great week so far. This week is going to be a little bit different. We're going to be talking about a few different concepts, about fear, about competing desire gridlocks, about what really keeps us stuck, why we're not on our purpose, and what's really blocking us from the life that we're really meant to live. This is my whole point of Inside Out, my whole concept, because

Typically, we want something to happen in our lives, but the trajectory that we are on is not actually conducive to how we actually want things to be in the bigger picture of our lives, like the grand scheme of it. If we want a loving relationship, but we're dating all of these people who are not committal, or we want to have more freedom and flexibility in our careers, but we're locked into a nine to five

with maybe a boss or a company that doesn't allow for that, or we want to travel more, but we're going out and spending all of our money doing things that don't align with us. So these choices that we make from the inside and individually do ripple out and affect the outside. So I want to bring awareness and ask some questions of where are you blocking yourself? Where are those things that are getting in your way? Is that in your career? Is that in your relationships?

Is that with your sense of freedom or autonomy or just what you want in your lives? And this is going to be one of those topics where you might have to play this episode a couple of times because it's going to get intricate and it's going to get deep. And I really do want you to look at your life and be like, what am I doing? What am I doing? Am I happy? And if I'm not happy, what can I change? And what fears come up around change? Like why?

Am I so resistant to change? And I get it guys. my gosh. That episode that I released about control and trust, the navigating life's GPS, I am so change resistant or I'm so scared of change, I should say. I'm not even like resistant to change. I'm just, there's so much fear because that there's so much unknown and I'm someone who really struggles with the unknown, but we all know this life is unknown. And if we don't

Jojo (02:54.784)
accept that, like truly accept it, not just cerebrally like understand it, but like accept it in our bones and really live that way and be okay when things shift and move around us. Then we're just gonna have a real big internal tug of war that's gonna ripple out to the external chaos that ripples out into our lives, which I know none of us want. That's why we're here. That's why we're listening to this. That's why we have these discussions.

because we do really want to change. Now, fear, which stands for false evidence appearing real is not an option here. And there's a really amazing book written by Monica Berg called Fear is Not an Option. And I'm gonna link it in the show notes. So go check that out because it really is a life-changing book that lets you take fear by the horns

rip those horns off and say, wow, there's nothing to be scared of really at all. So our lives have a trajectory. There are certain things as we progress through our lives and evolve and the things that we want to do and navigate, whether that's through jobs, through relationships, having a family, travel, whatever that is, a lot of us don't achieve the real things that we want in our lives because

we block ourselves and we block ourselves from these core desires because of fear, because there's something on the other side of this fear and this desire that's keeping us so stuck from really making the life that we want to have come to fruition. And what I have heard this being called is a competing desires gridlock. And I think it really is

a crazy way that we have blocked ourselves because we want certain things to unfold in our lives except we self-sabotage and get in our own way because there's so much that has to go into that for something to manifest in our physical reality. And maybe it's our ego that's getting in the way or maybe it's again fear or maybe it's resistance to change or

Jojo (05:20.586)
a cushy job and not wanting to leave a city because your friends are there or you don't want to get into a relationship because that means your freedom's gone out the window or whatever it is that you feel to be a reality. That perception of your world has that negative tinge or there must be some negative tinge on that because you're actually not seeing things come to fruition in your life of what you actually want.

Do we follow? Does that make any sense? For instance, one of my friends really wants to be in a relationship, except the way that she lives her life, she goes out on weekends, she's partying, she's, you know, going on a bunch of dates with different guys. Nothing wrong with this. Absolutely, totally fine. Love that. Live your best life. But she's complaining that she doesn't find any partners that are going to be good.

long-term partners. And I asked her, well, like, do you want to get married? Do you want kids and like all of these things? And she was like, yeah, I do. I, you know, I'm, I'm like, really want a family one day. So I was like, well, great. But if you have kids and you have a family, you're not going to be able to like do the things that you're doing right now. You're not going be able to like go out and party. And also the, maybe the people that you're partying with or the guys that you're meeting are in that lifestyle. So you're

You're not actually aligning with what you want longterm. And she sat back and she was like, well, that's a good point. I never thought about it that way. And that's the thing. We don't think about it this way for women. Like we might want to have children, but then there's a fear of, my God, my body's going to change so much. Yes. Yes. It's going to change a lot. And maybe you don't want to lose your nice figure or

your autonomy and your independence, or you think that you're going to have to like give up certain aspects of your life, which is true. You definitely, there will be a massive change, but if that's what you want and how you're behaving aren't aligned, that starts this problem with a competing desires. Good luck. Another situation that I was talking to someone about was something that they wanted to manifest in their careers. And he was telling me that

Jojo (07:42.626)
He wants something to go a certain way. He wants a certain company to buy something and it's like only this company that can buy it. And I stopped and I was like, hold on a second. Why are you so locked into this one company being the only option for you? But you want, you want things to like move on this. And he said that that was literally the only option. And I asked him why. And then I realized he's blocking himself because he only thinks that it's possible one way.

And there's so many doors that want to open, but he's knocking down the wrong door potentially. And when we want something to happen so badly and we think it's only going to happen one way, we're locking ourselves into something that might actually just truly not be meant for us. mean, how many times have we been with a partner, for instance, and we're in a relationship and there's so many things that just aren't right about the relationship, but we're like, well, we want to get married and we want to have a

family and, maybe time's running out and there's this level of, it could only be this person because I'm at this certain age and I want certain things to happen by a certain time and this is my timeline. But you want a really loving, healthy relationship, but you're in a relationship that might not be the things that you actually want for your life. Maybe they want to live in a small town for the rest of their life and have a white picket fence and raise a family down the street from their parents and you want to travel the world and that's not the life that...

you see for yourself, you have a very different view of what a nuclear family looks like. But you've been in this relationship for five years and you're like, well, I guess this is it. No, it's not. That does not have to be your life. You can change at any point because if you truly desire a very free lifestyle, maybe an international lifestyle or just the ability to travel more or be

kind of spontaneous and not be like stuck in a small town. Or maybe you live in a city and you want to live in that city forever, but your partner wants to move out of the city and have kids in the suburbs. And that's not the life that you want. Or they want to move to Colorado and you want to stay in New York. Again, you've been with this person for so long. So you think, well, if I want a family and I want to get married and I want all of these things, then I have to stay with this person. No, you don't. No, you don't. There is not a cap.

Jojo (10:11.666)
on anything. You do not have to give up your core desire for living in New York forever or for anything that you actually want because of someone else. And yeah, breaking up is scary. Making a massive, you know, relationship change is terrifying. But I've asked this question before, at what cost? The cost of your life, the cost of the things that you truly actually desire in this world.

because you're not going to have that if you just are going down this path and you're like, I don't know, I should have turned around like 20 miles ago. This is not it. But you still keep going down that path because you want kids and you want all these things. You guys, that's the actual catalyst for divorce down the road for a chaotic life that you are not happy in. If you're in a job and you are on track to get promoted and move up, but that's not actually what you want in your life. But the money's so good and

I would be set and I wouldn't have to worry and I could build up. So I mean really so, so what money is money. It's going to come, it's going to go your life. get one and the older I get and the more that I think about this, the more specific and honestly just the more serious I'm getting about like really what it is that I want where I'm not going to let anyone.

or anything pull me off my path. And trust me, I've done that. I've gotten into relationships where I'm like, uh, okay, I guess we're just here like, and then I lose myself or my desire gets put on the back burner and I'm fully, you know, kind of just creating a new reality with this person. But then I'm realizing how far away I'm getting pulled from like what I really want, what I've really wanted in this life. And so I think that's where

building out our individuality is so, so, so important. And you hear this all the time, like you have to like love yourself first and like before you get into a relationship and you have to really like know what you want in order for all these other things to like happen. But if you don't know who you are and what you want and your desires are not deeply rooted enough where you are able to identify them and not get pulled or swayed from them. So,

Jojo (12:33.356)
we're going to unpack my competing desire gridlock and where things are being blocked in my life because I have a competing desire or something that is blocking what I really am looking for. So this is going to get raw, but we're going to go for it anyway, because that's what I'm all about on Inside Out. I wrote a list of things that I really want in my life. And on the other side of that,

I wrote what I think is actually blocking me from achieving it or what in me is that limiting belief or again, competing desires, what we're calling it, that these things aren't manifesting. So this is my list of desires. What I want is to find that person. I'm going to call it soulmate wealth, success and abundance, a home in the sun, a really busy schedule with fulfilling career aspects that align with what I want.

So I wrote these things down across from soulmate. And what I think is really blocking me from being with that person or finding that person is this feeling that in order for me to be with the right person or find that person, I need to heal. I've talked about this in the healing episode. Go back and listen to that. If you have not listened to healing, but there is

a competing desire here because like while I want to find that person on the other side of it is, well, I'm not healed. I don't want to be caught up in the patterns that I've always done by going into their life and not really having my strong foundation built out. I need to really actualize the things that I want so I'm not pulled off course. I want to be able to have the freedom to live wherever I want or to do whatever I want. I want to be very focused on work.

and not be distracted. I want to have a lot of emotional stability in myself where I'm not in a tug of war back and forth or letting what they're going through kind of throw me off kilter because that's happened before. And I want to heal this part of me that just overthinks and has these obsessive overthinking loops that keep me not very grounded in the actual reality. So while I want to obviously find that person and

Jojo (15:00.696)
build a life with someone, there are all of these things in me that are actually blocking that from happening because the reality is I'm not in a place where that can happen until these other things are sorted out. The other thing is all of the wealth, abundance, career stuff, and then there's that fear of I'm not going to have enough time to travel or freedom or flexibility. I'm going to be on someone else's schedule and tied to what they need versus like what I want.

It's blocking me from pushing forward career wise because I'm super attached, let's say, to this idea of freedom and being able to like do whatever I want and be wherever I want. Because I am a contract worker. I do have my own things going on, but I can also on the other side of that say, well, I don't want to work right now. Or I'm taking off this amount of time and I have complete autonomy over that. But if I

work more or work harder or want to attract all of that financial abundance, that competing desire is, well, I'm going to not be able to travel as much. And that's really important to me. Another one of my things is I want to live in the sun. I want space. I want sky. I want nature. Yet I live in a concrete jungle and I'm constantly running away from New York because I'm like, I need space and sky and sun. So why am I not aligning myself with that?

Why am I staying in a city? Because I think I need to stay there because of career, because of friends, because I've been there for a decade. When the reality is, yeah, I could stay in New York for the next 10, 20, 30 years, have a family, do all the things there, but that's actually not aligned with truly in my soul what I want from my life. So then it's like, okay, well, the changes that I need to make, boy, the fear that comes up with that. It's a lot. It's scary. And as I've mentioned before, I'm talking about this stuff.

because I'm also working on this stuff, I'm changing this stuff, and I'm seeing this being a huge thing that people are dealing with. So that's just a couple examples of what I find that I'm blocking myself with. We aren't aligned. We aren't actually going after what we want. I'm gonna flip this and talk about some friends of mine that really do want...

Jojo (17:24.386)
these relationships and these situations to unfold. But the way that they're going about it is blocking them because they're not, they're not actually achieving what they want because they're not being really strict with themselves. And you see this so much even in dating and the stories that I hear from friends. One of my friends was like, I'm on this dating app. And I was like, how's that going? And they were like, you know, I'm definitely not going to like find my person on this dating app. And I'm like,

then why are you on it? Why are you like giving energy and why are you scattering your energy that way or letting people have access to you? If that's not, and you know that's not how you're going to meet your person. To me, that's very backwards. Other friends of mine are on these dating apps and they're going out with these guys because they want something specific. They want, you know, guy who makes a lot of money. You know, that, that funny TikTok that's going around. It's like,

six, five, finance, blue eyes or whatever it is. And they want, yeah, they want a guy who, you know, is tall, looks a certain way, has a certain amount in his bank account or that high value man as you know, the internet's calling it as well these days. And that's all great and fine. But just because he can afford you doesn't mean he's going to value you. And that's the key here. You might want all of these things on paper.

But what you actually want is a long-term partner who's gonna be loving, who's gonna be available, who's gonna be emotionally intelligent, who's gonna, whatever your list is of non-negotiables, of what that is that's important to you. And maybe your list is just six, five, finance, eyes. Cool. If that's your list, there's a million in New York. Go get them, But if that's not, and that's just what you think you want,

but the reality is you want a guy who's not gonna like put you on an emotional roller coaster or who's gonna really value you, then maybe we have to look at these competing desires because they don't go hand in hand necessarily. They might, they might, there's, there, mean, there definitely are people out in the world that there are both, but we're not aligning ourselves with the things that truly make us happy.

Jojo (19:47.584)
And as I've mentioned before, I'm talking about this stuff because I'm also working on this stuff. I'm changing this stuff and I'm seeing this being a huge thing that people are dealing with. We aren't aligned. We aren't actually going after what we want. My friends who are in long-term relationships, but they're not happy because there are things that are missing, but they want a family and they want these things to happen a certain way on a certain timeline. What is going to be the cost of that? What is going to be the cost of staying in that relationship?

you being unhappy for the rest of your life or really saying, no, I'm not doing this and actually finding what it is that you want. Because if you want to find someone who has certain qualities, if you aren't even being those qualities yourself and you just expect someone else to like magically appear,

Law of attraction, law of similarity of form, law of every law, even magnetism, the way magnets work. have to have, yeah, there's polarity, but you have to have similar qualities that are aligned. If I am thinking a certain way or acting a certain way, or if I'm waking up and working out and doing certain things, I'm gonna find people that are in that world. If I'm gonna find people that are automatically on that path rather than...

going out and fishing in a pool that has no bearing on my actual circumstances or where I actually am. I'm not gonna go fishing in Jamaica when I live in New York. It doesn't make any sense. I think another main key here with competing desires is really knowing yourself. And this is something I preach, preach, preach. And I practice, practice, practice too. But if you don't have alignment with your own individuality, if you aren't really

solid in yourself and you're just looking for something else to attach onto or latch onto or merge with, then these desires that you have just innately aren't necessarily going to work out because you're not being specific with your time and your energy. But I these friends who really want to be focusing on their career and making some moves before they like get into a relationship. And they really do want that relationship, but they're like,

Jojo (22:09.216)
No, until I really like get things going here and I'm able to have a little bit more flexibility and freedom or whatever it is that they're trying to actualize. They don't want to get into a committed relationship. But then business and stuff isn't moving forward because they're running around with all these different girls or guys and their energy is being scattered. They're not being focused because other people are taking their energy.

situations are like they're with one person this night and then running off and doing this and go to this fun thing, but that's not pushing their career forward because their energy isn't in that direction at all. Competing desire gridlock. Again, if you want something, figure out what is blocking you because if you want to be super focused on your career, there are still time for friends and fun and everything, but

Boundaries with yourself are so important and if you don't have those boundaries with yourself, then you're not going to be able To really push that career forward or have anything manifest that way. So let's get messy with this mental emotional spiritual We understand that the things that we are doing mentally and the way we behave emotionally blocks us spiritually so

If we want to clear this competing desires gridlock or get out of the gridlock and just have our desires manifest, understanding what our desires are, what our emotional desires are, whether mental, emotional, whatever they are, and then figuring out on the other side of that, like, what is it about the reason like I'm not finding that partner or that I'm not meeting someone that I can have children with or why my career isn't moving forward in the way that I want it to?

Is it because, I don't want my body to change because having a baby is going to change everything? Or is it because I want to be really focused on my career and have my career manifest so I'm not finding the right partner right now? Or I'm not manifesting my career because my energy is being spewed all over the place with people that shouldn't be taking up my time or partying or video games or whatever it is. Get really honest with yourself.

Jojo (24:29.922)
where you are being blocked because that's the only way to shift the gridlock, to shift this paradigm that we're stuck in. So often I hear people, whether they're like family members or just, you know, our grandparents or whoever we talk to that's older and being like, I wish I did this or I should have done that. And it's really like, why didn't I, or I could have gone and traveled around the world and done all these things, but I didn't because I was scared that

I was scared period. Remember that fear? Fear is not an option. False evidence appearing real. We are the catalysts of our own lives. We can actually wake up one day and say, I'm packing up and I'm moving because I'm not happy here. Or I'm quitting this job because I'm tired of the nine to five and I'm an artist and I want to do something different. Get out of your own way. 2025 is about ourselves. This is the year for really.

making sure that we are on track, that we are aligning ourselves truly from the inside out to actualize the change that we want to see in our reality. So if you are stuck somewhere or you're not happy, make a change and commit to it. Make some fundamental ground shifting, altering life changing decisions for your life, for yourself, for your future. It's never too late to shift and it's never too late until it's too late.

So don't wait, push forward the things that you want, cut out the things that don't serve you, get real with yourself, look at your surroundings, look at your living situations, look at the people in your life, look at your partner, look at every little aspect and ask yourself, is this what I want? And if it's not, that's okay. It's not gonna be easy, but it will be worth it because you'll look back and be like, thank God, I actually achieved the things that I wanted to in my life because I made some scary decisions.

I got real with myself and I looked around and I said, I'd rather be alone or I'd rather be lonely or I'd rather be unhappy by myself than unhappy with someone else. I'd rather be happy by myself than miserable in this job, in this relationship, in this situation, in this city, this fill in the blank. Let's make some changes guys. Thank you so much for listening this week. Please share with a friend, like subscribe.

Jojo (26:55.768)
Wherever you listen to your podcasts, make sure you're following along. Find Inside Out on Instagram at underscore insideout.podcast and make sure that you are chasing your desires, breaking that gridlock and getting messy every day. Have a good week guys. Bye.