What holds us back is rarely life itself, but the narrative which we cling to. When the story falls silent, movement returns.
One cannot individuate as long as one is playing a role to oneself;
the convictions one has about oneself are the most subtle form of persona and the most subtle obstacle against any true individuation.
One can admit practically anything, yet somewhere one retains the idea that one is nevertheless so and so and this is always a sort of final argument which counts apparently as a plus ; yet it functions as an influence against true individuation.
Jung
Mindfulbalance 
For me, life is something receive — gifted if you will from a higher source.
I can’t prove that, of course, nor can I explain that sense of free floating anxiety when I don’t feel that I’m in service to life; and you’re right to highlight the “story” which I have come to call the “dominant, cultural narrative” that sadly expects us all to behave a certain way.
I accept that it’s imbued with a lot of stereotypes and/or generalisations but, nevertheless, it’s something I continue to question, not least the fact that it hasn’t always been like this.
Take care, Julian
Thanks Julian for this thoughtful reflection. Modern culture often frames freedom as radical self-construction, but we grow up in inherited stories and energies,shaped both by the unlived parts of our ancestors and by what you term the “dominant cultural narrative” These narratives can become so pervasive that we mistake them for reality itself: success defined narrowly by productivity, identity reduced to performance, worth measured by consumption. Questioning these inherited narratives is important work. The different wisdom traditions remind us that beneath these layers there is also the unborn self — something deeper, quieter and less conditioned. Yet I do not always find it easy to work with these different parts of myself, or to know which voice is truly mine. Karl