Stuck is not usually solved externally.
Certain things are, you know, we could solve for the job.
We can solve for the relationship.
But ultimately, if you don't have an internal connection
with all the different aspects of your own mind,
you're gonna feel stuck no matter how good things get
in the external.
And fortunately, we can solve for that too.
So here's a bit of a silly question.
Have you ever felt stuck in your life?
Kind of like there's a gap between what you say you want
and what you actually do day after day.
I think we've all been there at some point.
So how do we break out of these ruts and get unstuck?
My guest today, Brett Frank, is here to really help shed some light.
So Brett is a licensed neuropsychotherapist
and author of the new book, The Getting Unstuck Workbook,
Practical Tools for Overcoming Fearing Out
and Moving Forward with Your Life.
And with a mix of science and personal experience,
she has created a powerful system
for understanding why we get stuck and how to move forward.
In our conversation, Brett and I explore the underlying causes
of feeling stuck.
And by the way, it's not what you might expect.
As she explains, stuckness is not a character flaw,
but rather a physiological state of shutdown in our brains.
By reframing things like procrastination and self-criticism
and learning to work with the different parts of ourselves,
she offers really eye-opening yet practical advice
for getting unstuck.
I think you'll be fascinated to hear
Brett's contrarian perspectives on topics like play,
possibility, relationships, and self-compassion.
Her message really provides that perfect blend
of inspiration and concrete action steps
if you've ever felt stuck in any area of your life.
This conversation will give you a powerful new understanding
and tools to break free.
So excited to share that conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
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I think the experience or the feeling of being stuck,
whether in one area of life
or in so many different domains,
it's so common across so many people.
And I feel like it's one of those rare things
where so often we use that similar language
of feeling stuck also.
I think maybe a good starting point for us is really,
what are we talking about when we talk about feeling stuck?
It's such an important question
because like you said, stuck can mean everything
from I want to get fit to I am in a war-torn country
with no escape.
And the work that I focus on assumes the stuck that I address,
assumes that you have solved for basic needs and safety.
So stuck to me is not I am in an inescapable threatening situation.
Stuck to me is I have choices
and there's no logical reason why there's the mile long gap
between what I say I want and what I find myself doing.
Why can't I do the things that I know would be best for me?
That's the kind of stuck to which my work goes.
Okay, so you use the phrase I have choices.
So I guess the thing that pops into my head immediately
is is that an objective thing or a subjective thing?
Like, I mean, does somebody sit there and say like,
okay, I'm looking at the universe around me.
All of my basic needs are taken care of
and I have like these three to five different choices
and I'm just not doing something
or is stuck this also about the fact
that maybe objectively we do have choices
but we simply can't even see them.
So I think there's an element of subjectivity
and objective fact when it comes to stuckness.
But I found in my work is both a recovering hot mess
of a human who was addicted to drugs and I'm, you know,
but also as a licensed clinician
who is sat with people from every single avenue of life.
Often we think we're stuck
because our brains are in such a state of spin
that we can't even access what our choices are.
It's also sometimes the case that we feel stuck
because we don't like our choices.
Like if someone is stuck,
we'll just say in a marriage that's not working,
their choices are to stay or to go
and there's, you know, derivatives of each of those.
That person might not like those choices
but those are in fact the choices.
And so even being an addict,
I'm not saying addiction is a choice
but I had options to choose recovery and I didn't.
I had options to tell someone what was up and I didn't.
And so it's very rare unless there's active,
objective oppression happening
that it's very rare that there are no choices.
And sometimes to get unstuck,
we start with, well, what are the options
and how can we get you to a yes?
Because stuck turns into unstuck
as soon as you start moving in any direction,
even a bad direction.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
How do we know?
How do we know when we're in this state, you know,
because it seems to me that it might not really be
all that clear when, especially when you're in it,
like from the inside looking out.
And especially if your life looks good.
Oh, that's interesting.
There's the stuckness of a two good life, right?
I have no trauma, nothing bad is happening.
My marriage is fine.
I have no reason to be dissatisfied.
And yet I can't sleep
and I feel this itchy, naggy sense of unease all of the time.
And so you can actually get stuck in a life
that works pretty well by believing
you shouldn't have a right to feel stuck at all.
I've found that if people allow themselves
to know what they know without any judgment,
and we drill all the way down,
that most people will know when they're stuck,
but it's that I don't have a right to my stuckness
or I shouldn't feel stuck because it's not that bad
and other people have it worse.
Now, perspective is useful.
Perspective on privilege and access is great,
but pain is pain.
And just because someone has two broken legs
doesn't mean that your one broken leg
doesn't deserve care.
So I'm big on if you gave yourself permission
to really go inside and inquire how you doing in there,
how's the weather inside?
Most people know when they're not okay
and when they're not well,
but it's a shame thing to admit it.
That's so interesting, right?
Because if from the outside looking in,
like other people are kind of saying,
you have everything, you know, like you've got the job,
you've got the relationship, you've got the house,
you've got all the quotes stuff.
And then from the inside looking out,
you're feeling, but no,
I don't feel the way I thought I would feel.
And I don't know how to get from where I am to where,
like I imagine I could be where I would feel differently.
Yeah, it's not just a problem of then,
like how do I solve for the feeling that I want?
It's also this shame that you're talking about
that gets laid on to it
because I quote, shouldn't feel this way
because I have all the things.
Exactly.
That's great that you have all the things
and that's great that you recognize how good you have it
relative to other people,
but stuck is not usually solved externally.
Certain things are, you know,
we could solve for the job,
we can solve for the relationship.
But ultimately, if you don't have an internal connection
with all the different aspects of your own mind,
you're gonna feel stuck no matter how good things get
in the external.
And fortunately, we can solve for that too.
Yeah, what is the feeling of being stuck?
Because I think stuck feels like a state to me.
But when I think about this,
because part of what you just described also,
you've got all the things or maybe you don't have all the things.
But like, and is there a spectrum of underlying emotion
that would, you know, like from melancholy
to depression, to anxiety, to what's the feeling
underlying the state of being stuck
or the set of feelings that we might look for?
And I love that you named stuckness as a state
because it is, it's not a trait.
It's like, I'm lazy, I'm unmotivated.
That's not a thing.
Stuckness is a physiological state of shutdown.
And this is where all the really good brain research
that's been coming out over the last 20 years is really helpful.
If you know that your brain has a gas pedal, a brake pedal,
and also an emergency brake,
and if that emergency brake is engaged,
you're not going anywhere.
But if you don't know that,
you're just gonna think the problem is you.
So stuckness can be this psychological constructiv,
I think I'm stuck.
It could be an emotional, I feel stuck,
but it's also physiological.
And that's the fight-flight-freeze thing
that most people are familiar with now.
The freeze response in your brain
is a physical state of stuckness
that you can't think your way out of
or affirm your way out of,
or journal your way out of.
A physical problem requires a physical solution.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
Using the metaphor of sort of like the,
the break in the emergency brake also,
I think we probably all had the experience
of getting into the car,
like putting in gear,
like pressing on the gas and nothing happened,
you're like, what's going on?
Yeah.
And it takes us to start to look,
we'll wait, what else is,
oh right, last night I parked on a hill
and I'd like pull the lever, I like hit the button.
But often we kind of forget that we have
this separate emergency system that locks us in place.
And I feel like we don't look for it in the car.
And I wonder if the same thing all might happen
just with us as human beings.
It absolutely is true.
And the thing is, I don't know how about for you.
I didn't forget it.
I never learned it.
I was in my late 20s before I even learned
that the three-pound lump of gray matter
and fat and salt in my head had these mechanisms
that were interfering with my mood and my emotions
and my decisions and my relationships.
So if you never learned how to drive a car,
how could you expect yourself to drive a car?
But with our brains, we walk around thinking,
this should be easy.
I shouldn't feel this way.
This should be this.
But it's like if you've never got driver's head
for your brain, of course you're running into the wall.
Of course you're stuck on the hill.
So again, fortunately, to solve the emergency brake problem
in a car, you need to know where it is
and you need to know how to disengage it.
I rented a car recently and I'm like,
where's the emergency brake?
It was some random button on the dash instead of the lever.
I knew I needed to solve by finding it.
I just didn't know where it was.
And that often is the case with our emotional stuckness
is you need to know how your brain works
in order to shift between the states.
Rather than just saying, I'm broken,
there's something wrong with me.
It must be me.
It's no, like this is a mechanism of your brain.
It's not a disorder, even anxiety.
We talk about anxiety.
Like it's this evil thing that comes upon us out of nowhere.
But if we're sticking with the car metaphor,
anxiety is the check engine light.
The check engine light is not the problem.
It's an indicator light because there's another problem.
And that's what anxiety is.
Yeah, you don't have check engine light disorder.
No, exactly.
That's insane.
But we do that to ourselves every day.
Yeah, it's so interesting.
I'm just thinking also, the car metaphor
is like it's just such a convenient one.
I'm like, I remember renting a car
and actually inadvertently hitting the emergency brake
when I ain't coming back the next day.
And literally had to go and find the manual
because I just couldn't really quickly eyeball where it was.
And I'm flipping through the pages, where is this thing?
But I've also had the experience years ago
where the emergency brake was a bit pulled,
not enough to stop me from driving.
But as soon as I was driving, I could just tell
that I was having to, there was a lot more friction
in the car, I was having to push on the gas so much more.
And like within a matter of minutes,
I started to smell something burning.
And I would imagine a similar thing happens with us, right?
Because it's probably not a binary.
Like it's on or it's off.
Sometimes it's kind of like in the middle somewhere.
And we just try and force our way through it.
But something's burning up there in the background.
We could take this metaphor and run with it all the way.
And the burning smell, we call that burnout
or we call that anxiety disorder or whatever.
But again, I'm not saying that mental illness is not,
I go to therapy, I take psych medication.
But if you don't know that these things are working
in your brain on your behalf,
the emergency brake isn't trying to get you,
it's trying to help you.
And if you have a different objective,
then stop and don't move.
It's going to feel like you're at odds with the thing.
But you're not fighting your car any more
than you're fighting your brain.
And we learn to treat our brains like our enemy.
I fight depression, I battle addiction.
It's like no, your brain is always on your side.
Yeah, it's like if the only thing that you ever knew
was push harder, then you'd be able to fill in your toolbox.
Eventually it's going to cause a lot of harm.
I'm curious to you, because I know a lot of the work
that you've done over the years also involves trauma
in various different ways.
You know, like big tea trauma and little tea trauma.
Talk to me about the relationship
between this feeling of being stuck and trauma.
And the word trauma, especially in the last,
I don't know, four or five years,
seems to become the trendy thing.
Now everything is trauma.
I see it everywhere.
I see it being used to describe everything from,
I don't like your music to,
I'm in an abusive situation.
And so the word has sort of lost what it means,
like most things.
I'd rather us be talking too much about trauma
than not enough.
So I get how we sort of over indexed on it.
But trauma by definition is when anything
exceeds your brain's processing capacity.
So anything that's too much, too fast, too soon
or not enough, I call it just to simplify it,
brain indigestion.
It's like if you eat food faster
than your stomach can process it,
you're gonna feel bad.
Trauma does the same thing.
Now that sounds reductive.
And I say this as a childhood and adulthood trauma survivor.
I'm not minimizing how painful and scary and horrible it is.
But if we're talking about what trauma is,
it's, your brain is actually physiologically getting stuck
in a can't digest or metabolize the experience.
And then we experience that indigestion as symptoms,
as flashbacks, as uncomfortable body sensations.
But trauma and stuckness are pretty closely linked.
I called my work the science of stuck
and not the science of trauma
because not everyone identifies as having trauma,
everyone identifies as getting stuck.
Now that makes so much sense.
I remember a couple of years back
talking to a vessel in the cult actually.
And one of the things that has stayed with me
is how he was describing,
and for those who don't know,
he spent his life sort of like researching
and developing treatments around trauma,
especially embodied physicalized treatments.
And he was probably the first one
that really described to me that so often,
like one of the signposts of trauma is that
whenever the thing happened,
that a part of you remains stuck in time,
like from that moment forward,
and unless and until you engage in processing that
in some meaningful way,
you are stuck in that time.
And you may not realize it sometimes for decades.
And you just keep like sort of laying your head against
like a thousand different walls
and wondering why you're not moving forward,
but that until you actually address the initial thing,
that you kind of remain in this concats on a weird way.
It's a show.
I mean, you can argue that time is a construct
that we invented to help make sense of the world.
And time when it comes to trauma doesn't really exist,
which is why people can say,
it happened 20 years ago,
but it feels like it was yesterday.
So time is tricky when it comes to dealing with trauma.
And the alarming thing that some people think
is, well, does this mean I need to go digging through my history
and all that Hollywood nonsense of recovering
all of the things I've repressed?
And the answer is no.
Sometimes you don't ever really get the story.
Like sometimes you might not remember
what happened that caused the stuckness
or this brain indigestion or this trauma.
But fortunately, what we know now is
you can still work on digesting an experience,
even if you don't have the memory of what happens.
Because trauma healing is about connecting
with yourself, with your parts,
all the different aspects of you.
It doesn't require memory regurgitation.
Thankfully, because so much trauma is preverbal,
where you don't have the brain structure
to even remember what happens.
So fortunately, you don't need to know your story
to heal from it.
Well, that's so interesting.
I would imagine that you see sort of like on the clinical side,
people resisting doing anything about it
because they're like, I don't want to quote, go there.
Like I feel like I've done a good job of compartmentaling it.
I don't want to open this Pandora's box,
which maybe something inside of me is saying
could be really big and really scary
and have to do like that deep work.
And it's interesting because you're kind of saying,
well, maybe it would be helpful,
but there may be other tools in the toolbox
to help you unlock and move forward
without doing sort of like that level
of what maybe really scary work for people.
Exactly.
Because the bigness of healing trauma is very off-putting
to parts of us who are invested in keeping us functional
and away from it.
Oh, no, what will change if I identify this?
But if you think of this like a pool,
you can deep dive on one ends,
but that doesn't mean that there's not a shallow end
to splash around in if you don't have the skill set
for a safe dive.
And sometimes life is too busy and too hectic
and legitimately you don't have the space
or the bandwidth to process the pain
that you're about to encounter.
And so even if consciously you know
there's stuff you need to get to,
but you can't or it's not smart or safe to right now,
there's plenty of good work to be done
on the shallow side of things and shallow is not bad.
Shallow got equated with bad and deep equated with good
and that's just a binary that's not helpful for healing.
It's a forgiving lens to take on this work
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When you think about this feeling of being stuck,
there are certain people who tend to be experiencing
more or more deeply or more often.
I mean, are there people who are more or less at risk
of this experience?
I think the same is true for stuckness
as we would say for trauma.
Depending on your level of resource,
your family of origin, your current level of safety,
your genetic makeup, your brain chemistry,
all of those factors will leave certain people
more susceptible to stuckness,
just like that would leave certain people
more susceptible to trauma.
But I will say often the factors
that exacerbates stuckness are systemic and not personal.
Like the things that we call personal issues often are,
like trauma-informed therapists are not available to everyone.
I was horrified to discover, and a lot of people don't know this,
but you can become licensed as a psychotherapist
and never learn about trauma and never learn about the brain.
That's a little concerning, but it's true.
So trauma-informed care is a specialty
that not everyone can get to.
That's not a personal failing.
That person's probably going to stay a little stuck
because of a systemic issue, not a personal one.
No, that makes a lot of sense.
You have said that many of us were taught to solve for symptoms
and what we really needed to solve for is safety.
Take me into that more.
That one gets a lot of pushback.
What do you mean, solve for safety?
I'm fine. Clearly I'm fine.
I have a nice house.
I have enough food.
All of my basic needs are met.
Okay.
So safety is not always the overt.
You're in a dangerous environment with bad things happening.
What I didn't know about the brain.
I don't know about you.
But our brain has an entire team.
I call them the safety team.
And their job is to scan the environment every second of the day.
And they do it unconsciously.
Looking for things that feel familiar, smell familiar,
look familiar.
And not everything is going to trigger the safety team.
But anything can.
And so if we don't know that our brains have this automatic
scan for safety, shut down the system if it perceives a threat.
Even if there is no threat.
If you got bit by a dog as a child.
And you kind of flinch every time you see a dog now.
Logically, you can tell yourself, well, that dog is not my problem.
I'm fine.
Why is my brain doing this?
But your brain has then paired that dog from now with the dangerous dog
from the past.
And the output is we are now in danger.
Quick.
Make them flinch or whatever.
So again, it helps to know that our brain has this unconscious function
of safety scanning.
And it's not rational.
And it's not logical.
And it will shut us down or poof us up into fight flight or freeze
at any sign of a real or perceived or historic or future threat.
Again, it doesn't mean you're stuck that way.
It does mean that you need to know about these things in order to effectively change them.
Yeah.
I mean, I think having that basic knowledge can be so helpful.
It reminds me a lot of Stephen Porgis' polyvagal theory.
And I feel like that, you know, so many people eat this.
And I'm curious whether you hear, I feel like I'm hearing more and more conversations
about, quote, nervous system regulation or dysregulation,
which it sounds like that's sort of like the broader term for some what we're talking about here.
It is.
And I love Dr. Porgis' work.
And I love that we're talking about the nervous system.
But like most things, this conversation about regulation and dysregulation
has turned into nervous system regulation equals calm.
And if you're not calm, you're dysregulated.
And that's just not true.
Regulation is not the presence of calmness.
Regulation is I can still think clearly, access my choices and make decisions
rather than just reacting in high level emotion or whatever.
Fight flight freeze, any of that.
But you can be regulated and angry.
You can be regulated and scared.
You can be regulated and sad.
All regulation means is that you are still driving the car instead of locked in the trunk
while it barrels down the highway at 90.
That's such an important distinction.
And I think it's missed so often because we kind of think, oh,
if my nervous system is properly regulated, I'm just kind of like chill all the time.
Definitely.
You know, like nothing bothers me and all rolls off like completely fine.
And what you're saying is like, no, it just means you're going to feel like the full spectrum of emotions
like from anger to like sadness to loss all the different things.
But you'll have more a stronger sense of agency and choice within that context.
Is that right?
That's right.
Okay. That makes so much more sense.
And it also goes back to the conversation around shame earlier because with all this conversation around safety and nervous system,
you know, you kind of think, well, if I'm not that sort of like super chill person,
then I'm not doing the work or something's not wrong with me.
Whereas you're saying, which again has this opportunity to later on,
like, I'm, you know, like they're shame again.
Like, oh, I should be feeling differently.
Like, you know, like my nervous system is like bonkers right now.
It's like, that's not good.
I'm unhealthy.
When in fact, you're saying, no, your nervous system actually might be fine.
You're just feeling what would be an appropriate emotion for the experience.
Exactly.
Which is also, it can be off putting, you know, stuckness has a function too.
Even though it's bad and we don't want to be stuck and I'll speak for myself.
So I'm not attacking anyone personally.
Just for me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
If I'm just stuck and there's nothing I can do, then there's nothing I need to do.
And so stuck becomes kind of a safe place where I can compress all my big feelings
that are very distressing and uncomfortable.
And I could squish them down and say, well, I'm stuck.
And there's clearly nothing I can do about it.
And so this is just who I am.
And this is just how it is.
And that's just not true.
And so part of getting unstuck requires learning to tolerate
the discomfort of emotions and all of those icky body sensations that come along with it.
But yeah, to your point, it helps to know just because you're feeling a giant feeling
doesn't mean you're dysregulated.
No, I think it's so powerful.
You know, all the research around emo diversity, you know, like a good life is actually a life
where you experience the full spectrum of emotion and feeling.
And that means you can, you know, high highs and also loss and grief and all the different things.
It's not when you're just baseline, you know, like living in the gray.
Like even though so many people think that that's, you know, where it should be.
But that's not what it's about.
And that's not life.
I just heard a whole thing about biodiversity.
And why if you don't have parasites and all mosquitoes and the things that we don't like about nature,
if you don't have those things, the entire ecosystem collapses.
And our minds are the same.
We don't want these steady states in.
I feel nothing.
Things, I mean, like yes, meditate, go to yoga, take breaks from life by doing that.
But if you don't have a diverse array of parts, even parts that you don't particularly care for,
your mind isn't going to work just like in nature, we need all of the things to make an ecosystem work.
It's true inside and it's true outside.
I know as nature does like socially.
We forget that so often.
Big topic that comes up in the context of stuckness also is this word that comes loaded with so much judgment also procrastination.
You have a very contrary and view.
Take me into your mind and so on for procrastination.
That word drives me bananas.
And my disclaimer is I am not saying it's okay to do nothing.
My thing about procrastination being the wrong word and the wrong sentiment is not a hall pass to do nothing.
But procrastination is this I'm not doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing.
So there's something wrong with me and now I'm procrastinating.
But that's a shamey moral judgment, not inaccurate neurological reality.
What's happening with procrastination is your brain safety team.
For whatever reason, it might not be logical is thinking if I do that thing, something bad will happen.
So this organism, this person is better off being shut down in a free state than doing the thing.
And that's what procrastination is.
It's a self protective adaptation to a perceived threat.
Again, people get so like, what are you saying?
I'm not answering my email because my brain thinks I'm going to die.
Sometimes, yeah, like if there's no logical reason why you're not answering the email.
And you really want to and you know you need to and you just cannot bring yourself to do it.
That is because your brain safety team is on board doing their thing.
Yes, ADHD, yes, there are neurodivergent things that can account for procrastination.
But generally speaking, if you're not doing the thing you want to do and you don't know why,
it's safe to default to your brain safety mechanisms.
And then again, you're not solving for productivity, you're solving for safety.
It's not how do I do the thing.
It's what people, places or things make me feel safe so that I can downshift into a more productive state.
Yeah, I mean, that's so interesting to look at it that way because so often procrastination comes with a whole lot of both self judgment and external judgment.
You know, like in a work environment, if you're on a team and they're x, y, and z tasks that are under your responsibility and a dead line of Friday.
And then you just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and other people in the team are like,
well, did they have you done it yet? And your leader is like, have you done it yet?
You know, that not only are you judging yourself from the inside because like, why am I not doing this?
Why can't I do it?
But from the outside looking in, there's a lot of just sort of like cultural judgment around this as well.
Like this is a character flaw.
This is not an internal systems process.
Like there's something wrong with this person's character so often what comes into the mix.
It's true. And again, I bet suggesting that you give someone permission to not do their task because their brain is in safety mode.
You know, we do want to recognize that if you're on a team and there are expectations, yes, the expectation that you do the thing is important.
But if we want to solve the problem, this is true with negotiations with actual people and with inside your mind.
We need to separate your parts from the problem.
You are not the problem. The problem is the problem. You are a person trying to cope with a problem.
And the solution is not analysis or insight for the situation you just described.
Why am I procrastinating? It's not usually the best place to start.
A better place to start is how can I break down my next step into something so small? I call them micro-yesses.
How do you break it down into something so ridiculously small that it's easier to do it than to argue with myself about doing it?
And micro-yesses will get you to where you want to go with procrastination a lot further, a lot faster.
And why am I doing it? Why am I doing it? Why am I doing it?
So again, we want to have the outcome, but we have to start by reframing the problem. Not as a personal one. It's an external problem.
And you can solve for that by micro-yessing your way.
So if we take the example, let's say of somebody who it's May and I'm looking towards the summer and
it would be awesome if I was able to get into shape to be able to run this local 5K in my community where everybody's out.
It's a lot of fun and we're raising money for this cause that I really believe in.
But I know I quote should be out there doing the things, but for some reason, every day I'm just not doing them.
Walk me through how I might might rethink this. I love that example.
As someone who spent many years smoking a pack of day and doing a lot of drugs, I relate to that dilemma.
What happens with fitness goals? And this happens every January first, like clockwork.
Everyone tries to take these big, giant steps forward. I'm going to run three miles a day and I'm going to make sure I block out an hour a day to train.
But human brains are not wired for fitness. They're wired for survival. Human brains are not wired for success.
They're wired for survival. So what we have to do is recognize that all change, even healthy change, registers to your brain is threatening.
Because our brains like familiarity. So a micro-yess for a fitness goal is not run a mile.
It's not even go for a five minute walk around the block. It's put your left shoe by the front door and then go back to the couch.
And then tomorrow put your right shoe by the door and then go back to the couch.
And then the next day put your left foot in the shoe, then take it out and then go back to the couch.
Now people are like, how am I supposed to get anywhere if I'm taking steps this small?
And the answer is you're going to get where you want to go faster than if you keep doing what you're doing, which is reach too big.
Brein gets overwhelmed, you shut down, you shame yourself, repeat.
Micro-yesses are not the pace that you stay at. They're the pace that you start at.
So what we want to do is build up that reservoir of, I can do the thing, I did the thing, which then sort of microdoses dopamine, which then produces motivation.
And that creates an up cycle. So we have to start with steps so small that frankly they're infuriating.
So it's part of what's happening in that situation then, taking it back to what you said around safety.
And as a core reason why we don't do things when we're procrastinating, that by sort of like microdosing action,
it's like we're de-risking each individual step.
Enough so their brain is like, oh, it's really hard for me to like see this as not safe.
Yes, think of your safety team like a group of firefighters standing on the sidelines watching your every move.
And at the first sign of anything dangerous, they're going to come rushing in and shut it down.
If you're putting your left shoe by the door, your safety team is going to look and go, okay, well that's fine.
Like that's not going to change anything. But every day that you do that, your system can then tolerate a little bit more.
It is, it's microdosing action so that your safety team's fight flight freeze stays safely off in the off switch position.
And that micro steps do that and they feel silly and they are, but that's science.
Yeah, you sort of lay out saying let's pull this away from like procrastination as a character element and think of it as a system.
And you describe what you call the four S's.
I remember the four P's. What are the S's?
Oh, maybe it was a P's actually.
I remember I wrote that book in 2020.
So, okay, let's go to the four P's.
I think it's the four P's.
So funny.
Okay, so I talk about, you know, the four P's of procrastination or anxiety or any type of stuckness that we don't like, any problematic habit.
It prevents danger.
It's not always logical, but if you don't do anything, then you don't have to worry about something happening while you're doing the thing.
It also prevents discomfort.
If you want to get fit and you haven't been fit, that first run is going to stink.
It's going to hurt.
It's not going to be pleasant.
It also promotes connection.
Misery does tend to love company.
And so people are very quick to gather around and feel connected in their efforts to overcome a source of stuckness.
The loneliest I had ever been was not when I was in my addiction.
It was an early sobriety because I had to lose all my friends because if I was the only one committed to recovery, I couldn't keep going back to the same places.
And so it's important to know that being stuck does promote connection.
It's not it's a suboptimal way that we do that, but it does.
I mean, it's so interesting also, right?
Because if one of our sort of primal needs is belonging and the people with whom we're finding belonging are people in a similar state, then it means that us essentially voluntarily outcasting ourselves from that sense of belonging in order for us to be in a space where we start to move forward with our life.
Which is scary. I mean, really uncomfortable.
It's so uncomfortable.
And the last piece that it points towards problems.
Now, if you're procrastinating, it might be because you hate your job.
It might be because you've neglected your self-care needs.
It might be because who knows what.
But if you look at it, that can be very confronting.
And look, it's like when the check engine light used to come on in my car when I was in my early 20s and broke, I would put duct tape over it so I had not to look at it.
I didn't want to know that there was a problem.
La la la la la away from the problem.
And it can be scary to look under the hood.
But it's important to know that procrastination specifically has a function.
It's not just this thing that makes you a bad person.
It's doing a job.
And if we can figure out what job it's doing, we can solve for that instead of trying to white knuckle your way through behavior change, which doesn't usually work.
Yeah, that makes so much sense. I mean, it can work for a hot minute, I think sometimes.
But then it's like, you can revert right back to some whatever that short term motivation goes away.
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
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One of the other things that you really dive into as well as this notion that in any given person's head,
there's a dinner table of personalities living there.
It's not just one person.
And I was exposed to this idea to a certain extent, you know, through Dick Schwartz and internal family systems.
And it was sort of like this light bulb moment for me.
Like, oh, so take me into this concept.
That's my favorite thing in the entire world to talk about and write about and think about.
Because just like if you don't know that your mind has or that your brain has a gas and a brake pedal and an emergency brake, you're going to get stuck.
If you don't know that everyone has multiple personalities, you're going to feel absolutely beside yourself when they all start fighting with each other.
And I love Dr. Schwartz's work on internal family systems because it normalizes multiplicity.
It's not that you have multiple personality disorder.
It's that again, look to nature.
Every complex system is made of multiple parts.
One tree is made of bark and branches and roots and leaves, but it's one tree made of parts.
Even an atom can be broken down into smaller parts.
So if every single thing in nature can be broken down into sub parts, why would we think that our minds, which are probably the most complex system I can think of in the known universe,
why would we think our mind is this one thing and it's either healthy or unhealthy.
It's either distorted or it's normal.
Our minds are made of parts and it's scary to think of yourself as multiple personalities, but it makes all of the chatter make sense because if you're fighting with yourself, what's really going on?
Like it's not that there's this entity inside you that you're arguing with who wants you to eat M&Ms instead of going for a run.
It's these are parts of you and they're all valuable and they all have messages and working with them promote self compassion, which changes the brain states.
Like if you want to talk about physically shifting between states, knowing how to work with all the different voices in your head is a really effective way of doing that.
So the relationship between first accepting that we have these different personalities, kind of like running around in our heads and the feeling of stuckness take me more into that relationship.
Yeah, the internal family systems model calls parts stuckness polarizations.
And again, that sounds really scary.
All it means is part of you wants to do one thing part of you wants to do the opposite thing part of me wants to do the good thing and part of me wants to do the feel good thing and those are mutually exclusive.
When you have parts that are polarized with each other, it's really easy to look at well part of me that wants to smoke meth is bad and the part of me that wants to be sober is good.
But if you side with either of your parts, you're going to create imbalance in the system.
So the solution is not the meth part smoke meth.
It's I need to understand not what they want to do, but what's driving these desires and if you drill down it's usually the part of me that wants to do drugs is trying to protect me by avoiding the part of me that wants sobriety is trying to protect me by dealing with my reality.
But self protection is a mutual goal and then you'll cause this the third path.
You want to get to not drugs good drugs bad sobriety good you want to get to what's the third way of thinking about this and that allows for all of your parts to feel valued.
So what are some questions or tools that we might start to think about to help us if like we've got we recognize we've got the we've got these two voices inside our head and one was like I really want to do this.
It's great. It's healthy. It's blah blah blah. And the other ones like no, not what are some of the opening moves or questions or prompts or tools that we might start to think about to to find or explore that third way.
Some of the best ways the most practical way of taking all this esoteric parts multiplicity third path thinking and making it really accessible is to look at the business world like read the book getting to yes things that talk about how to negotiate between two parties that's the stuff.
So rather than I hate this part of myself for this it's invite them all to the table and ask them all questions that's the thing about this again sounds really weird but we think thoughts all day we talk to ourselves all day we tell ourselves stuff all day.
I'm suggesting that we just make it more of a dialogue rather than this monologue. I feel this way I feel this way versus okay high part of me that wants to do this tell me what's going on for you like what would you do if you were running a team.
You would have to listen to the concerns of all of the team members and then as the leader you make the most informed decision that gets you to the best outcome for everybody.
This is the same stuff so like practically start following Instagram accounts to talk about negotiation start reading business books about how to negotiate a conflict that's the stuff we're talking about.
It's almost like you can like set a daily meeting on your calendar for instead of for your external team for internal team and like okay like what do we bring to the table today let's talk this through and then like somebody's got to make decision at the end of that.
And it doesn't once you get fluence and you get used to this idea of your parts you can do parts work very quickly doesn't take a lot of time.
So yeah having a daily business meeting or a weekly meeting with yourself and your quote team is an incredibly good use of time it saves a lot of trouble.
For something like this in particular because I would imagine you know once we get in touch with the different parts of ourselves that it might get a little bit hard to kind of like keep track.
What's your take on the value of different types of journaling exercises for sort of like note taking and processing these types of like internal family meetings.
I'm a big believer in journaling and it's not just I have faith in it it's science shows journaling is good for our brains and putting pen to paper does technology moves way faster than our brains moves like in my lifetime AI is unlikely to replace my human brain.
So knowing that writing things down helps your safety team stay off and your logic team stay on.
That makes a good case for why you should write things down if parts feel overwhelming I tell people don't worry about quote journaling just make a list of all the characters think of it like you're a movie director and every time you encounter a part jot it down I have the part of me that's really starkey and is like a moody 16 year old I have the part of me that's the I want to do everything and volunteer for everything and get all a's I have a part of me that doesn't care anything at all about any about right them all down and just start to extend curiosity.
And curiosity does a lot of jobs on our behalf the chief of which is it keeps us out of fight flight frees you cannot be in a curiosity state and a shutdown state at the same time so curiosity will keep your physiology in a place where the outcomes you want are more likely to happen.
That makes a lot of sense as you're describing it also you know one of things going through my head is that you know if I sit here and I make you know a list of the cast of characters in my head you know pretty soon and like as I'm writing out that list you have the cast list I'm going to be judging this is the one I need to get rid of or need to kill off during like that or I need to and what you're kind of saying is not really like OK so maybe there's this inner critic that's really taunting you and teasing you and like trying to like
but it's more about a kiss a list of the fact that this this character exists in my head and then maybe and like looking for the value like what is it trying to tell me rather than saying I need to kill it because it's stopping you from doing things I want to do like say no no no no like it's here for a reason like what's the reason does that make sense yes that's exactly right and if you tell your brain I have a part of me that I need to kill your brain is going to take that literally because brains are smart but they're literal and stupid sometimes.
And so if your brain thinks that the enemy is inside it it will deploy a lot of things to shut that part of you down and that's going to be experienced as stuckness so yeah with your inner critic it's not I hate it go away it's once you have your list assume that every part has value and then we want to explore what is the job now I have an inner critic to everyone has imposter is and we all have a full set of characters but if you can't
really attend to the fear of the part rather than judging it then you'll learn how to collaborate with it and now not all the time but when I'm functioning well and doing all my stuff my inner critic is more of a coach like okay that was a great try but we could do better but like this is what we need to do to do better and I believe in you and you can do it so like go get some coaching in this area go up level your skills and then we'll try again and that works it's a lot better than just affirming yourself
because all these self affirmations don't allow any room for growth and most people me included could use some up leveling in certain areas and so turning your inner critic into a constructive coach is useful yeah I can completely see that you offer a really interesting reframe saying what would you change if you thought of your inner critic as a scared child instead of an angry parent which I think a lot of people here that they big
you yeah because like if a little kid says I hate you now a parent who's under resource is going to feel that and take that very personally but a parent that's well resource and able to manage here's a toddler say I hate you and doesn't freak out about it goes okay that toddler either needs a nap or a snack or a hug but like clearly that's just their way of expressing distress our inner voices are often scared little children doing their best and it's our job to parent them
and love on them and then everyone works together and the goal is not eliminate your parts it's take care of them so that everyone can work together because they're all valuable yeah and that does bring us to one of the other major topics that you explore which is and you reference it earlier the notion of self compassion I think a lot of people have heard the phrase compassion you know and but it's often you know in the context of how you explore somebody else self compassion take me more into this what you know what are we talking about when we're talking about what we're talking about is the most important thing is that you know what we're talking about is the most important thing is that you know what we're talking about is the most important thing is the most important thing is that you know what we're talking about is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most important thing is the most
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Maybe some of it is really bad and maybe some of it just feels like it's just kind of on cruise control and every day it's just feeling less and less and rewarding but it seems like the stuckness is this thing that creeps into so many different relationships and so many different levels.
It's true and when it comes to other people, you can control them. So if you're in a relationship that's less than awesome and we, you know, if you and I were talking, I would say, well, what are your choices here?
If they're not willing to talk and they're not willing to listen and they're not willing to change, your choice points are accept this relationship in its current iteration or leave it or put it in the periphery of your universe instead of the most important one, but you can't change other people or make them make different choices, which is unfortunate.
But with relationships, it's committing to the what is and what's available rather than trying to wish and hope it could be different.
Talk to me about the relationship between feeling stuck in a relationship and boundaries because I know this is something that comes up so often.
It's something that I think we feel really uncomfortable about for a lot of different reasons as well.
Oh, the topic of boundaries.
Boundaries are sort of like working out after you haven't when you start setting them, you feel like the most terrible person in the whole world, all of your parts are almost guaranteed to freak out like we're going to get in trouble. They're going to reject us. We're going to get punished.
But it helps to define boundaries because that is another word that's gotten misused. A boundary is not me telling you what you should do.
A boundary is me deciding what my choices are in response to your behavior. So boundary is just a synonym, a fancy one for choice.
So if I say to you, I don't take phone calls after eight, don't call me and you call me at 830.
You haven't broken my boundary. You just didn't do what I asked you to do.
If I pick up the phone after eight, that's me violating my own boundary.
So if my boundaries I don't take calls after eight, then it's on me not to answer the phone after eight.
And so no one can technically cross a boundary. Like if your boundary is during an argument, you need time alone in your room and your spouse comes barreling through.
That's not them breaking your boundary. That's them being emotionally abusive.
And so no one can bust a boundary except you. Boundaries are your choices in response to someone else's behavior.
And they're really scary because sometimes boundaries do eliminate relationships.
I remember I was in a relationship where as soon as boundaries became a thing, the relationship collapsed because I was no longer participating in the toxicity of it.
And that's a terrifying reality, but it happens not always.
But usually if the person is not receptive of your boundaries, that is a sign that the relationship's not that awesome to begin with.
That's so interesting. It's almost like there are two parts. One is the establishment of the boundary.
And then two is the enforcement of the boundary. It's like it's not enough to just say like, like when this is how I want to be treated so that I can feel the way I want to feel.
You know, it's also when somebody goes and steps over that line, it's then on us to say, this is what I shared and this matters to me and I'm going to hold true to it, which is not an easy thing to do.
I mean, there's so much complexity in there.
And then people will say, well, why can't they just not call me after eight? Like, it's not that hard. Like, why do I have to set the boundary?
Why won't they just do what I want them to do? And I get that because people are people and they don't always do what we want them to do.
And so the boundary enforcement is very much on us. And that's not fun or pleasant.
Which brings us to one other topic I want to dip into with you. And it's this notion of, so one of my favorite words in the world is possibility.
And it goes along with this other word play and then possibility and player these two things that you sort of like you dive into in your work.
And as adults, especially I feel like so many of us have lost the experience of play in our lives. You know, we're just like, oh, that's what you do is you like, that's what kids do.
And as you offer the notion of play and stuckness have this really interesting relationship adults who refuse to play will generally find themselves stuck in multiple areas.
For an extended period of time play is a biological imperative, not something reserved for children like animals. And again, if we're going to look to the natural world for inspiration about how to do these living alive human things animals play.
Humans are designed to play, playing, defined as activity that's done with no particular objective or purpose, just because it's fun.
So if it's I must do this painting in order to sell at this gallery opening that's not play that's cool. You're being creative, but play is I'm just throwing around a ball and we're not counting and we're not keeping score.
A game is different like games are great, but play just doing things because they're fun with no objective is so important and it's so good for brain health.
It's good for relationship building. It's good for nervous system regulation and adults fight pretty hard at this notion of play because we feel dumb.
We feel silly doing it. And I go, yeah, it's going to feel awful until it doesn't like anything new. Play feels weird and foreign and like we're doing something we shouldn't be, but it was up to me every corporate place in this country would have a playgrounds and recess mandatory.
I would love that. It is so interesting how we just get out of that in our lives in our head, especially in work lives. And then when we're put back in a scenario where you know corporate team building retreat.
Oh, like there's this play exercise and for the first five or 10 minutes, a whole bunch of people feel really weird. No, I'm not doing this. I don't know. Can I just say this one out? I'm a phone call.
But then like when you're actually like like no, this is all hands. Everyone quote has to do it. If you're really worried for the first 10 minutes and then after that, it's the best.
You know, like there's everyone just drops the shields and you're like, all right. This is how I can feel and it's amazing, but it's so often we're so fearful of being judged if we're the only ones saying yes to it.
We've for good reason adults are very, very mean and judgey if you know if I went skipping through the park, which I do sometimes I feel though, oh my god, I look like this random lady. I don't have kids and I go to the playground by my house and swing on the swings and people are going to think I'm weird.
And yes, they will. And then the answer is so what? My life's going to feel better and work better. And I tell people who are super hardcore business people like you'll generate more revenue.
Like play is good for your bottom line. People that play produce. And so if you want to better output and more revenue, then play is going to get that job done in a lot of ways.
Right. With no play, there's I mean creativity and innovation kind of don't exist. Exactly.
It's like stepping into novelty is doing things you've never done before. That's what it's about. You know, I love this. I love all the different ways that you sort of like approach the notion of stuckness.
It feels like a good place for us to come full circle and our conversation as well. So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?
Parts connection to live a good life is to know and love all your parts have access to as many parts as possible while you're alive to get to know them.
Hmm. Thank you.
Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe, I'll also love the conversation we had with Charlie Gilkey about finishing projects that matter.
You'll find a link to Charlie's episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsey Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing helped by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter, crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Del for her research on this episode.
And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favorite, a seven second favorite and share it?
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Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.
