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It’s important to note that as we’re expressing ourselves we need to get to the core emotions, not just spin on the surface. Some people complain or scream to cover up feelings of anger or shame or sadness. Others cry and appear helpless instead of expressing anger. What helps us to get unstuck is dropping down and connecting with our core feelings.

Becoming unstuck is about moving from constriction and frustration to flow, vitality, and ease. It’s about an internal stability that allows you to experience calm amid the storm, accept the “what is” of life so you’re not fighting against yourself. It’s about having the courage to make major changes without losing sight of the little things you can do each day to soothe, delight, and bring you home to yourself.

Some questions to ponder:

Do you feel shut off from your emotions and detached from your body, as if you’re not really in it? Do conversations and situations seem almost unreal, as if you’re looking at life through a Plexiglas wall? What sensations and emotions would arise if you came back into your body? Just ask yourself the question and see if anything arises. Don’t work at it or “think” about it.

Do you lack access to a wide range of human emotions? For example, you might be able to feel anger but not sadness, or sadness but not anger.

Do you have chronic aches and pains with no perceivable source?

Can you notice a connection between holding back emotions such as sadness, hurt, or fear, and what happens in your body or energy level as a result?

EXERCISE:

Tuning In to Your Body

Take a trip through your body. As if there’s a little you with a flashlight, go through your whole body, noticing any tension, congestion, or pain, as well as places that are more relaxed. Whenever you come to a tense or blocked up part, take some time to focus on it, breathe into it, and simply be with it.

Notice the physical experience you have in response to the following: fear, anxiety, worry, sadness, loneliness, lack of assertiveness, as well as happiness, joy, feeling cared about. Do any of them reflect places where you feel stuck?

3. Stuck and Unstuck Thinking: What’s the Difference?

Understanding is like water flowing in a stream. . . . In Buddhism knowledge is regarded as an obstacle for understanding. If we take something to be the truth, we may cling to it so much that even if the truth comes and knocks at our door, we won’t want to let it in. . . . We must learn to transcend our own views.

—THICH NHAT HANH , THE HEART OF UNDERSTANDING

There is a huge variation in the degree to which people get stuck. Everyone meets adversity in life, but even with difficult childhoods, economic strain, illness, divorce, insecurity, and boring jobs, some people rarely stay stuck for long. They hit bumps in the road, pick themselves up, regroup, and keep going. The predominant difference lies in an abiding faith in their ability to get through hard times, which includes resourcefulness, creativity, perseverance, taking action, and an ability to ask for help and cooperate with others.

Here is a scenario that demonstrates the difference between those who stay in the flow of life and those who get stuck: Imagine the unstuck people are driving down a bumpy, remote road in winter and the car breaks down after hitting a pothole. Within a short time they have built a lean-to from branches in the woods to keep them warm, someone has pooled all the food they had to share, and they then start a fire. Having taken care of their immediate needs, they sit in a circle to hear each other’s ideas on what they should do to get help or who should start making the long trek to find someone. There is a sense of being in this predicament together, and they trust they will find a way.

The stuck people’s car breaks down on a similarly remote road and the first reaction is panic and anger. “Oh God, this is terrible, what a stupid thing, we never should have come here.” Harsh