Getting Unstuck by Embracing Unrest

Freedom Is Finding Where We Have a Choice

"I feel trapped,” said my client. "All I’ve ever wanted is to be free, but here I am stuck in a job I hate and in a relationship that’s going nowhere."

I asked her if she might be willing to slow down and feel what was happening in her body as she spoke.

"What's the point of that? I don't see how that's going to change things," she replied impatiently. “I just want my freedom.”

“Freedom is not having control; it is finding where we have a choice,” I said to her gently. “And the first choice is to let yourself feel what it feels like to be you when you are vulnerable.”

Vulnerability Feels Threatening

Vulnerability is simply the truth that we don’t ultimately control outcomes in our lives. We are affected by forces in the world around us. Vulnerability is not dangerous. But vulnerability feels threatening.

The physical feeling of vulnerability is unrest: a spike of sympathetic nervous system activation. Confronted with our limits to making things be the way we want, we feel a jolt of agitation and tension. In that moment, we mistake vulnerability for danger and start worrying about and controlling things, or we criticize ourselves, or we distract ourselves from what we feel with food, alcohol, activity, or scrolling.

Attention to sensations is soothing.

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Attention to Sensations of Unrest Soothes the Body

But vulnerability is a fact of life, and unrest wants to help us with the emotional and psychological challenge of our limits. So, we need to tune in to our uncomfortable bodily sensations with warm interest and nonjudgement and slow down long enough so that the body can register our conscious presence. Our attention to sensations of unrest soothes the body.

When the body settles, we can access our coping resources—perspective, sense of humor, compassion, awareness of the bigger context, patience, inner complexity, and so much more.

When we avoid what it feels like in that uninspiring job or that dead-end relationship, we can endure the stuckness for a long time, the adaptive energy of our emotions hidden and unavailable to us. We stay in situations that aren't working for us, cycling through feelings of frustration, hopelessness, worry, and self-attack. But we don't let ourselves feel the truth of our limits.

The Fantasy of Control Is a Barrier to Freedom

We need to feel when we've hit a brick wall and experience what cannot be changed. "I can't" is painful, and we need to allow our sadness to help us surrender to what we cannot singlehandedly dictate. We must stop blaming ourselves and others.

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The fantasy of control is a barrier to freedom. When we yield to our limits to force our work to be the way we want, we might be inspired to search for other opportunities. If we feel the gap between what we long for and what we can make happen of our own efforts, we may be moved to confront what isn't working, and through that process, either my partner will get on board, or I will be able to get out.

As we face our vulnerability and experience our feelings deeply, we communicate to ourselves that we matter. And when we matter, everything changes. Even when the circumstances do not change, the energy shifts inside. We are no longer stuck.

Will you let yourself matter?

Choose to feel your vulnerable self and find freedom. This is a physical process. Tune in to the discomfort of unrest when you are faced with your limits to control things that matter to you. Go slow and let your body know it is safe. Then, you can be carried by adaptive emotion to a new place of freedom where you matter.

You are so worth it.