How Do We Get Stuck and What Helps Us Get Unstuck
By Rami Nijjar
It is not uncommon to find ourselves stuck in a behaviour or pattern of relating to ourselves and others that is unhelpful and gets in the way of a fulfilling and meaningful life. This kind of stuckness can take many different forms including chronic self-criticism, procrastination, explosive anger, substance abuse, avoidance of intimacy, and the list goes on.
Getting unstuck is one of the main reasons that people seek out therapy, in hopes of gaining some perspective or guidance as to how to reduce their suffering and move forward. An important (if not crucial) first step to becoming unstuck is to do the opposite of what we are inclined to do: to turn towards the behaviour, thought pattern, or emotion with a sense of non-judgmental acceptance. This feels counterintuitive and is often met with resistance and raised eyebrows. But by turning toward that behavior we are trying to change, we acknowledge how we became stuck in the first place and start to address the underlying needs that this pattern (ineffectively) meets.
It is often the case that entrenched patterns are those that were developed at a time when we needed them in order to survive. In other words, it was protective at a time when we didn’t know how else to protect ourselves, or couldn’t protect ourselves any other way. Maybe it wasn’t safe to express emotions around a volatile caregiver, so we learned to push our emotions down or avoid our own emotional experience. Overtime and with compounding life stress, this emotional avoidance might become even more extreme and take the form of numbing out through food, substances, or other addictive behaviours. Perhaps our pattern of explosive behaviour came out of a wish to protect ourselves from appearing vulnerable after painful encounters with schoolyard bullies or abusive or inconsistent caregivers. Although these behaviors become maladaptive and harmful to us, they originally came from a sincere place.
Feeling ashamed or judgmental of these patterns only serves to leave us blind to the underlying need that the pattern meets. This causes us to feel helpless in the face of the pattern, and we often waste a lot of energy trying to battle against it. This causes us to remain stuck. Buddhist psychologist and mediation teacher Tara Brach speaks of the importance of forgiving the behaviour or pattern, psychologist Kristen Neff goes a step further to add that we can even thank the behaviour or pattern for keeping us safe at a time when we needed it. This type of acceptance targets the layer of shame which so often leaves us glued to the patterns that are no longer serving us. As we move away from shame and towards acceptance we are more able to address the causes of our suffering and thereby get unstuck.
Here are 5 ways in which we can turn towards and start to rework unhelpful patterns:
1) The power of the pause. Tara Brach talks about this in her book Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of the Buddha: When we can recognize that we are caught up in a pattern, the best thing we can do is stop, pause, and explore what is going on underneath that pattern. Is there fear underlying the explosive anger? Is there a need for closeness or validation that is underlying the acting out or numbing behaviour? Revisiting our patterns again and again with a mindful, self compassionate presence has been shown to be able to change the way our brain responds and, over time, reshape our neural pathways. Next time you are getting caught up in a destructive emotion or behaviour, try pausing and turning your attention inwards. By noticing what is happening in the moment, you give yourself the power to choose a new way of responding.
2) Ease up on the self criticism – try self compassion instead. Often we feel that if we are less hard on ourselves we will become lazy, unmotivated, and complacent. However, researchers, including Krisitn Neff and Kelly McGonigal, find the opposite. According to McGonigal, self criticism acts as a “straight jacket” which binds us to our shame and makes it impossible to act in a goal-directed way. Treating ourselves with compassion and forgiveness, on the other hand, allows us to “get back on the horse” and make healthy changes.
3) Get to know the different parts of yourself. According to internal family systems creator, Richard Schwartz, we have different aspects of ourselves that formed in order to meet different demands in our early environment. People tend to reject the parts of themselves that they don’t like (i.e. the reactive part, the emotional part, the insecure part), which makes it impossible to get to know this part and what it might need to grow beyond destructive patterns. Healing comes from accepting all of our parts, especially the ones that make us uncomfortable. Next time you react in a way that brings up shame, see if you can turn towards this part of you with curiosity rather than rejection. Notice how you feel about this part of yourself. What early memories of reacting this way do you have? Why might this part of you have emerged at precisely that time in your life history? What might you be afraid would happen if this part did not play its role (i.e. getting angry)? What is this part still protecting? Kelly McGonigal goes further to suggest that you make a list of the self who wants to change vs. the self that doesn’t want to change: what do each of these selves think, feel, want, what are they afraid of, what values drive them? It is important to make friends with all of our parts, and to also decide which parts you want to strengthen and then try to make decisions from those parts.
4) Write it down. As described in Opening Up by Writing it Down, by James Pennebaker and Joshua Smythe, engaging in free flow writing about a traumatic event, for 20 minutes, 3-4 days in a row, helped people change their internal dialogue and begin to release their traumatic experiences. Try it! Just get a pen, paper, and timer, and write for 20 minutes without lifting your hand from the page. This form of expression is thought to be cathartic, providing an emotional release. It helps us put words to our experiences so that we are more able to understand the meaning behind them and let them go.
5) Rewrite your automatic thoughts. Psychologist Rick Hanson, the author of Hardwiring Happiness: The new brain science of contentment, calm, and confidence says that it is important to not only isolate your self-limiting beliefs (i.e. I’m a bad person) but hold these beliefs in the background while you savor experiences in which you are disproving the belief (i.e. being helpful or kind to others). By slowing things down and holding the negative belief and the positive experience in the same moment, you can internalize new beliefs about yourself (i.e. I am a good person) that override the feared experience.
Overall, patterns are hard to change, but it’s not impossible. If we treat ourselves with kindness and acceptance and consistently engage in corrective practices, we can move out of fear-based living and into greater well-being.
For assistance with changing unhelpful patterns, contact us.